The App Store will be expanding its ages ranges from the current two levels to four, as Apple prepared an new age range API (Application Programming Interface) that will enable parents to set what age range their child falls into. This removes the need for children to provide their actual date of birth, thereby negating some privacy concerns, while enabling app developers to comply with age verification laws which ban access to social media apps for children under the age of 16.
As reported by The Guardian, the two ratings, 12+ and 17+ we have today will be expand to 4+, 13+, 16+ and 18+. Parents, will be able to stipulate what group their child/children belong to. I assume this will be through the Screen Time and Parental Control settings available through Apple’s iCloud service.
App developers will then be able to allow or deny access based on the user’s declared age range.
When the social media laws were passed last year, social media companies such as Meta and TikTok lobbied the government to out the onus on Apple and Google, as the operators of the tow main software distribution services for their apps, to provide a central age verification system. Despite not being required to do this, Apple has chosen, it seems, to provide this service.
Google is taking an algorithmic approach. But reading their recent blog about age verification, it seems a little bit fluffier than Apple’s more direct approach.
In principle, there’s nothing wrong with ensuring content is only made available to people where it is age appropriate. We have rating systems for movies and TV. But those are regulated industries that grew slowly. The internet is a completely different beast.
When Tim Berners-Lee created the first iteration of the World Wide Web (on a NeXT computer create by Steve Jobs’ company during his exile from Apple) he could scarcely have imagined how his altruistic vision for the open sharing of information would become such a political and social minefield. But it grew so rapidly across the world that regulation became impossible.
Today, politicians are trying to catch up. Content filtering based age verification is just one of many battlefields we’ll face over internet regulation.
Anthony is the founder of Australian Apple News. He is a long-time Apple user and former editor of Australian Macworld. He has contributed to many technology magazines and newspapers as well as appearing regularly on radio and occasionally on TV.