App Store Accountability Act
Summary
What This Bill Does
The bill defines definitions establishing age categories, covered app store provider threshold (5M+ US users), and key terms for app store child safety regulation, requires mandatory age verification, parental account affiliation, verifiable parental consent, notification of significant changes, data confidentiality protections for covered app store providers, and requires app developer age verification obligations, significant change notification, restrictions on contract enforcement against minors without parental consent, prohibition on third-party sharing of age data. It relies on compliance mandates, definition changes, reporting requirements, and liability protections. The main policy areas are Technology.
Who Benefits and How
Minors (under 18) could face reduced risk, Compliant app developers could face reduced risk, and Parents of minors could face reduced risk.
Who Bears the Burden and How
App developers would take on compliance duties, Covered app store providers and app developers (violators) could face increased risk, and Covered app store providers (Apple, Google) would take on compliance duties.
Key Provisions
- Defines definitions establishing age categories, covered app store provider threshold (5M+ US users), and key terms for app store child safety regulation.
- Requires mandatory age verification, parental account affiliation, verifiable parental consent, notification of significant changes, data confidentiality protections for covered app store providers.
- Requires app developer age verification obligations, significant change notification, restrictions on contract enforcement against minors without parental consent, prohibition on third-party sharing of age data.
- Requires FTC compliance guidance issuance within 1 year, voluntary compliance certification mechanism with 30-day review and 1-year validity, complaint mechanism for monitoring.
- Requires FTC enforcement treating violations as unfair or deceptive acts under Section 18(a)(1)(B) of the FTC Act, with full FTC Act penalties.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
The bill defines definitions establishing age categories, covered app store provider threshold (5M+ US users), and key terms for app store child safety regulation, requires mandatory age verification, parental account affiliation, verifiable parental consent, notification of significant changes, data confidentiality protections for covered app store providers, and requires app developer age verification obligations, significant change notification, restrictions on contract enforcement against minors without parental consent, prohibition on third-party sharing of age data.
Key Policy Areas
Technology
Primary Purpose
The bill defines definitions establishing age categories, covered app store provider threshold (5M+ US users), and key terms for app store child safety regulation, requires mandatory age verification, parental account affiliation, verifiable parental consent, notification of significant changes, data confidentiality protections for covered app store providers, and requires app developer age verification obligations, significant change notification, restrictions on contract enforcement against minors without parental consent, prohibition on third-party sharing of age data.
Policy Domains
Whole bill
Identified Gains
- Minors (under 18)
- Compliant app developers
- Parents of minors
- Covered app store providers and app developers
- State attorneys general
Identified Costs
- App developers
- Covered app store providers and app developers (violators)
- Covered app store providers (Apple, Google)
- Federal Trade Commission
- Covered app store providers (>5M US users)
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
In CommitteeMr. Lee introduced the following bill; which was read twice …
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, …
Introduced in Senate
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
App developers, App developers on covered app stores, Compliant app developers
Positive-direction: Compliant app developers, Covered app store providers, Covered app store providers and app developers, Small and independent app developers
Negative-direction: App developers, App developers on covered app stores, Covered app store providers (>5M US users), Covered app store providers (Apple, Google), Covered app store providers and app developers (violators)
Consumers (state residents), Minors (under 18), Parents of minors
Federal Trade Commission, State attorneys general, State legislatures and regulators
Federal Trade Commission faces effects in multiple directions
Positive-direction: State attorneys general
Negative-direction: State legislatures and regulators
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology