California lawmakers seek open-source age-verification exemption (opens in new tab)

California lawmakers are considering AB 1856, an amendment that would exclude most Linux distributions and other open-source operating systems from the state’s Digital Age Assurance Act before its age-verification requirements take effect on Jan. 1, 2027. The 2025 law, AB 1043, requires operating system providers to collect a user’s birth date, age, or both during account setup and make an age-bracket signal available to app developers and related services through an interface or API. The pro...