Apple has announced in an official document that it plans to introduce a number of new child safety features, including allowing parents to specify the age limits of their children in apps, updating the App Store’s age rating system, and making it easier for parents to create child accounts for their children. The company says it will introduce these features “this year.”
Companies such as Meta, Snap, and X have called for platforms to be responsible for verifying users’ ages at the operating system or app store level. Apple has also reportedly lobbied against a proposed bill in Louisiana that would have required the company to enforce age limits.
In its document, Apple argues that age verification “at the app marketplace level” would not be ideal, as it would require users to share “sensitive personally identifiable information” with the company. “This is not in the best interest of user safety and privacy,” Apple says.
The age-based system takes some steps in this direction, but doesn’t go so far as to fully verify the age of each user. With the age range feature, “parents can allow their children to share the age range associated with their child’s accounts with app developers,” Apple says.
The age range will be “shared with developers if and only if parents choose to allow this information to be shared,” and parents will be able to disable this feature. The feature will also not “provide actual birth dates of children”. Developers will be able to request age ranges using a new API, which Apple says is a “highly specialized tool that minimizes data and protects privacy to help app developers who can benefit from it.”
“Today’s announcement is a positive first step, but developers can only apply these age-based protections with the consent of teens,” Meta spokesperson Jamie Radice told The Verge. “Parents tell us they want to have a say in the apps their kids use, and that’s why we support legislation that requires app stores to verify a child’s age and get parental approval before their child downloads an app.”
As for the App Store ratings, they will expand from four thresholds to five; the new categories will be “Age 4+”, “9+”, “13+”, “16+” and “18+”. In their app listings, developers will be asked to indicate “whether the apps contain user-generated content or advertising opportunities that may affect the availability of age-inappropriate content” and whether the apps have their own content controls.
Apple states that the App Store will not show children’s apps with age ratings “in the places where we present apps in our storefront” that are higher than those set by their parents for their accounts.
For children’s accounts, Apple says it will introduce a new setup process and allow parents to correct the age associated with an account if it has been set incorrectly.
