EPIC Commends California For Protecting User Privacy and Speech in Proposed Age Assurance Rules
EPIC filed comments with the California Department of Justice supporting proposed regulations under SB 976, the Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act. The advocacy group said the draft rules align with the privacy and free-speech principles it had previously urged the state to adopt for age assurance systems.
Why this matters: Age verification sounds simple until you think about what it actually requires. To check how old someone is, a platform usually needs to collect real identity information — and that data doesn't disappear after the check is done. California's proposed rules matter because they try to build guardrails around that collection before the industry sets its own defaults. EPIC's endorsement suggests the state got closer than most to protecting kids without turning every user into a surveillance target. That balance is genuinely hard to strike, and most attempts so far have failed one side or the other.
Who should care: Lawyers · Compliance · General readers · Privacy officers · Policy
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