California enacts age-gate law for app stores (www.engadget.com)

California signed AB 1043, requiring app stores and operating systems to implement an age-gate that assigns users to one of four age buckets (under 13, 13–16, 16–18, adult) based on a parent-entered age during device setup. Unlike stricter laws in Utah and Texas, the law doesn’t demand parental consent or photo ID; it simply shares the age category with app developers. The bill—backed by major tech firms including Google, OpenAI, Meta, Snap and Pinterest—takes effect in early 2027 and joins other states pushing platform-level age controls. The package of related laws tightens content and AI safety rules: AB 56 mandates recurring social‑media warning labels for youth (first open daily, after three hours total, then hourly), chatbots must include self-harm guardrails and route suicidal users to crisis services while reporting mitigation steps to public health, SB 243 bans marketing chatbots as healthcare professionals and forces periodic AI-disclosure reminders to minors, and AB 621 raises penalties for distributing nonconsensual deepfake pornography. For the AI/ML community this means new platform APIs and compliance workflows (age-bucket signaling, content gating, disclosure reminders, moderation and logging/reporting), engineering trade-offs around privacy vs. verification, and a clearer regulatory precedent for how models and app platforms must manage minors.