Data Collection From Age-Verification Mandates Will Increase Breaches, Blogger Says
Age-verification mandates will increase the number of data breaches, such as the recent incident involving dating safety app Tea (see 2507280017), ACT | The App Association said in a blog post Friday.
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"Data breaches like this aren’t rare; they’re routine," wrote the association's Caitlin Irr. "And what happened with Tea is exactly the kind of breach we risk institutionalizing through the age verification mandates being implemented or considered" in the U.S., UK and elsewhere.
Though age-verification laws are meant to protect children online by limiting access, "in practice, it often means collecting troves of sensitive personal information," which turns app stores and browsers "into enticing targets for cyber criminals," she said.
"The global trend around age verification mandates will inevitably cause future data breaches," Irr added. "These breaches will not only expose adults but also children, revealing home addresses, personal identifiers, and private messages, which put them in harm’s way and leaves families to deal with the dangerous, real-world consequences."
Congress is considering bills like the Kids Online Safety Act (see 2505140048) and the App Store Accountability Act (see 2503260068). Additionally, several states have laws requiring age verification and the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) recently took effect (see 2507290003).
"These poorly designed proposals don’t eliminate danger; they just create new ones," said Irr. "If lawmakers are serious about protecting children rather than lining the pockets of companies like Meta, they need to pass a strong federal privacy law, crack down on poor data collection practices that actually exploit kids, and stop pretending that surrendering personal information is the price of children’s safety."