Peter Schorsch
On Monday afternoon, the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee will hold a hearing to discuss Senate Bill 1438, introduced by Sen. Erin Grall. This bill requires app stores and operating systems to obtain parental consent before minors can download apps on their devices.
SB 1438 mirrors House Majority Leader Tyler Sirois’ House Bill 931, which was introduced last month and is awaiting its own committee hearing. The bill analysis indicates that these identical bills will “enhance online protections for minors” by requiring app stores to offer features for parental management of a minor’s app and device usage.
Florida follows numerous states nationwide that have introduced similar legislation to provide parents with more comprehensive tools to monitor and approve every app their child downloads, not just social media applications.
Utah became the first state to pass such legislation in February. The Utah bill is awaiting the Governor’s signature. It has already been endorsed by U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, who is expected to reintroduce his own federal bill requiring age verification and parental consent at the app store level in the coming days.
Tiffany Justice, Co-Founder of Moms for Liberty and Visiting Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, praised Lee’s efforts, stating, “Utah legislators know that parents belong in the driver’s seat when it comes to their kids and access to technology. Congratulations to Utah parents for being respected! Let’s get this federal legislation moving!”
U.S. Rep. Mike Haridopolos supported the proposal to hold app stores accountable and provide parents with greater tools because the “influence that that phone has is powerful.”
“Why wouldn’t we had just like you have ratings on movies and the same things to be held online, because you cannot even go down to all different paths and online?” Haridopolos said. “And even when you had your blockers on, kids are creative, and they’re finding ways around it. And so it’s something we have to look at because the influence that that phone has is powerful.”
Both Apple and Google have recently updated their child safety measures to preempt legislation requiring app stores to offer better tools to developers and parental consent mechanisms. However, legislators have deemed these efforts insufficient.
Earlier this year, the Foundation for American Innovation (FAI) released a paper advocating for app store age verification and parental consent.
“Age verification at the app store and operating system levels has several advantages: Compliance burden limited to a small number of highly resourced firms; Centralization avoids fragmentation across hundreds of thousands of apps; More likely to survive constitutional scrutiny,” posted Evan Swarztrauber, Senior Fellow at FAI.
Other states considering similar legislation include Texas, Alabama, Kentucky, South Carolina, West Virginia, and more.
