App store age verification as a path toward digital safety carries risks

As teens spend increasing time on digital devices and social media parents and lawmakers debate how best to protect them through regulations focusing on screen time limits and records collection practices While safety remains paramount proposed solutions require careful review to prevent new vulnerabilities or key technical and assurance risks One such proposal as promoted in this commentary in MinnPost has been to move age verification from individual platforms to app stores App store age verification appears streamlined and efficient but this convenience risks compromising robust shield protocols and creating unclear lines of accountability particularly concerning when dealing with children s input This centralized approach would establish a single point of failure for sensitive personal statistics making it an attractive target for malicious actors Moreover storing verification facts at the app store level would make personal information potentially accessible across all downloaded applications vastly increasing the threat of input breaches and misuse Several of the backing for this approach that is backed by the social media industry seems driven more by operational convenience than by thorough defense considerations This could impact in the function being abused by bad actors to steal and abuse our kids details at a time when statistics breaches are reaching all-time highs Implemented solutions to protect children in digital spaces must achieve a delicate equilibrium between precaution measures privacy protections and practical effectiveness While app store verification may present an apparently straightforward implementation path it falls short of addressing core safety requirements Instead Minnesota legislators must pursue comprehensive verification methodologies that simultaneously strengthen both child protection mechanisms and personal content prevention protocols Michael Halagan is a consultant and founder of Local AI The post App store age verification as a path toward digital safety carries risks appeared first on MinnPost