Utah's App Store Accountability Act: What You Need to Know

Utah’s App Store Accountability Act (ASAA), a first-of-its-kind bill based on research from the Institute for Family Studies, has moved through the state’s legislature. Introduced by state Senator Todd Weiler (R-UT), the bill passed both chambers this week and is now headed to Governor Spencer Cox’s desk, where it is expected to be signed into law. 

To date, similar app store accountability bills have been introduced in 8 other states (and counting) and are expected to gain a lot of traction. Put simply, this legislation is a bare-bones bill designed to strengthen families by requiring app stores to uphold longstanding practices under contract law, such as requiring age verification and parental consent for any download or purchase for a minor under 18 years of age. 

Last month, the Institute for Family Studies was invited to provide expert testimony on the bill as legislators debated the Act. Both of us were honored to testify before the House and Senate committees, respectively. Here is a summary of the five points we made in support of the bill. 

1. App Store Accountability Gives Parents the Help They Need

Despite the fact that the majority of parents take action to limit the screen time and social media use of their teens, most remain worried that their kids will be exposed to harms on apps. These worries are not ill-founded. Age ratings and app descriptions are often inconsistent with a user’s in-app experiences. A one-day investigation by The Wall Street Journal recently found over 200 apps whose age-ratings did not match a user’s in-app experience. Furthermore, apps and app stores face effectively no liability for how adults behave on their platforms, leaving kids vulnerable to countless harms. 

ASAA corrects these problems by requiring app stores to put parents back in the driver’s seat when it comes to app use by their kids. ASAA empowers parents to better monitor their child’s digital diet by requiring app stores to get parental permission for every app download, purchase, and in-app purchase that a minor makes. Additionally, the bill requires age verification, which serves as a critical backstop for those kids who attempt to circumvent parental supervision. 

2. App Store Accountability Protects Kids from Exploitation 

In the real world, minors aren’t allowed to enter complex contracts with adults or multi-trillion-dollar corporations without parental consent. Yet, this is exactly what happens each time a child agrees to a platform’s “Terms of Service.” In most other cases, minors must be 18 to enter into a valid contract. States are within their rights to empower parents to exercise authority over the contracts that their children form in the app store. 

This might not sound like such a big deal to readers, but consider that when the Terms of Service Agreements are signed, what a minor is often providing these platforms is access to extremely sensitive data, such as contact lists, photographs and videos, metadata, and even personal location. This can have real-world consequences.

Consider the recent case of a 13-year-old Minnesota girl who was sexually assaulted. After a 37-year-old man contacted the girl, he then showed up at her residence thanks to Snapchat’s location-sharing feature. Though the app is rated 12+, the girl’s parents, like many others, might not have been aware that children can enable such features allowing others to track their real-time location. ASAA would eliminate such loopholes as it ensures apps contract in a way that matches the real world by acquiring parental consent. 

3. App Store Accountability Institutes Commonsense Safeguards 

In every state, there are laws that require establishments to verify the age of a minor before allowing them to access various products and services and to hold those establishments accountable when they fail to do so. And the consequences are steep: grocery stores, bars, and restaurants can be fined or even lose their liquor licenses or other retail licenses for selling age-restricted products to underage customers. 

App stores should be no exception—but they are. Research has shown that the effects of social media apps and online pornography are detrimental to the physical and mental health of teens. Yet a number of apps leave the doors open for kids to be exposed or find these things (even when their age rating says otherwise). Or worse: on some apps, predators are known to easily find and interact with minors. Such in-app experiences can hardly be considered kid-friendly. While app stores shouldn’t be responsible for the faulty designs of particular apps, they, like brick-and-mortar stores, should at least be responsible for protecting minors from apps that are known to be harmful to minors—especially when you consider that Apple rakes in $26 billion in revenue from their app stores. After all, with great power (and profit), comes great responsibility.

After years of app-store exceptionalism, ASAA forces digital store fronts to finally adopt the same common-sense standards other industries have been practicing for years.  

4. App Store Accountability Upholds First Amendment Rights

Contrary to what opponents may claim, ASAA does not violate First Amendment rights. As designed, ASAA does not restrict content at all. It simply regulates the conduct of app developers, via app stores, when it comes to contracting with minors by requiring them to get parental consent. It therefore should withstand First Amendment challenges.

Moreover, while the Supreme Court has previously ruled that online age verification was unduly burdensome on free speech, that precedent is decades old and based in the internet’s infancy, prior to the advent of smartphones, ubiquitous pornography, addictive social media, and, yes, app stores wielding monopoly power over millions of apps. More recently, the high court indicated a potential reversal for online age verification in oral arguments for Free Speech Coalition vs. Paxton. The justices expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of parental controls to adequately protect children and indicated support for aligning the constitutional order in the real world with what happens online. While the case centers on age verification for porn sites, a ruling in favor of online age verification could pave the way for bills like ASAA.

5. App Store Accountability is Technologically Feasible

Age verification is an easy lift for app stores—and for multiple reasons. First, app stores already have a system set up for family accounts. Today, parents can already link their child’s accounts to their own to see the applications they download and approve purchases. ASAA simply requires app stores to go one step further and get parental consent any time a child attempts to download or purchase an app or make an in-app purchase. Second, as Apple’s recently announced “Age Range API” shows, app stores have the technology to verify age without sharing a minor’s sensitive personal data, such as a date of birth. ASAA would simply make this kind of secure age verification standard practice for app stores and hold them accountable for failing to age verify and get parental consent. 

The App Store Accountability Act represents a significant step forward for protecting kids in the digital age. It is a commonsense, technologically feasible, and constitutional bill that will empower American families to protect their kids and hold tech companies to the same standards as other industries. Hopefully Utah’s success will inspire other states and Congress to follow suit. 

Jared Hayden is a Policy Analyst for the IFS Family First Tech Initiative. Michael Toscano is executive director of The Institute for Family Studies and director of the Family First Technology Initiative.