United States of America: Law on Age Verification Signals in Software Applications and Online Services (AB 1043) becomes applicable to pre-existing accounts and applications

On 1 July 2027, in accordance with Section 1798.502 of Title 1.81.9 (Digital Age Assurance Act) of the Civil Code, operating system providers are required to provide an accessible interface for account holders to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user of any device for which account setup was completed before 1 January 2027, to transmit a signal regarding the user’s age bracket to applications available in a covered application store. Additionally, developers of applications last updated on or after 1 January 2026 and downloaded before 1 January 2027 must, by this date, request an age verification signal from a covered application store with respect to the user of that device. These obligations supplement the broader requirements of the Digital Age Assurance Act, which mandates the use of secure, real-time application programming interfaces to provide digital signals categorising users into specified age brackets and prohibits sharing or using such data for non-compliant or anticompetitive purposes.