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PayPalWith California's new age checking law coming into action in January 2027, there's a lot of discussion on how Linux distributions will be handling it. California are also not the only ones going for it, as it appears Colorado will also be doing a similar thing but that's coming while later - and we can expect more to follow.
A post on the Ubuntu developer mailing list has sparked numerous discussions online, with Canonical's VP of Engineering Jon Seager officially replying on the Ubuntu Discourse forum to note:
Over the past couple of days, there has been a lot of commentary about Ubuntu and how it’ll respond to California’s new Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043), which will require operating systems to collect age information at account setup and expose an age “signal” to eligible applications from 2027.
Canonical is aware of the legislation and is reviewing it internally with legal counsel, but there are currently no concrete plans on how, or even whether, Ubuntu will change in response.
The recent mailing list post is an informal conversation among Ubuntu community members, not an announcement. While the discussion contains potentially useful ideas, none have been adopted or committed to by Canonical.
When we have a clear plan, we will publish it through our usual channels.
There's a similar post on the Fedora forum from Fedora Project Leader Jef Spaleta, where they initially noted they weren't actually aware of it. However, in a follow-up post they said:
I’m not sure it requires telemetry.
I’m now aware of a similar legislation in Colorado.I really don’t want to get over my skis and speculate too much. But I’m hopeful that the biggest impact for the entire ecosystem is that we figure out a way to have an OS local API that applications can choose to query.. and ask the OS what age bracket the current user is… and then the application is able to make UI/UX choices based on the OS provided information.
I think the point is to not have to have all the applications have to figure out how to ask for age information individually. The point I think is to ensure age information can be part of OS account creation and applications can query the OS to determine which age bucket a user is in. No telemetry… just a way for applications to query the OS… a local API… sounds a lot like a dbus service to me.
So what I am envisioning in my head is a family desktop computer… where the parents are the administrators.. and they create an account for their kid. When they create an account, the OS needs to have a way for them to optionally indicate the age bucket for the human associated with the account. Applications then could choose to query the OS concerning the age bucket and make UI/UX adjustments based on the age bucket info the OS returns.
Again I’m still coming up to speed on these pieces of legislation, and I still need to have more discussions with people. What I think is being mandated by legislation is making sure OSes have a documented way for applications to query for the age bucket information for the user. Do not take that as binding understanding, that is my current understanding based on what I’m reading currently in terms of editorial interpretation of the legislation that I can find. There’s work to do here to get clarity on that.
End of the day.. this might be a simple as extending how we currently map uid to usernames and group membership and having a new file in /etc/ that keeps up with age. It might be as simple as that and we extend the administrative cli and gui tools to populate that file as part of account creation. That might be simplest and it solves the problem for the full ecosystem of linux OSes. Then applications just have to start choosing to look at the file.
Seems like it might end up quite messy for various Linux distributions. Especially for smaller distributions that don't have legal teams. We're in for some rough weather with so many new age-based regulations across different countries coming into force over the next few years.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Last edited by pb on 4 Mar 2026 at 11:33 am UTC
Really don't see how they can enforce it, particularly on linux distros
Quoting: ZlopezI don't really understand all the "Protect the children" laws as they are usually just a way of control in disguise.Then you do understand. It's nothing to do with children, and it's nothing to do with parents. The people that are pushing their panopticon just want to be able to claim that those who oppose it "hate children."
fenglengshun 2 hours ago
Quoting: Doktor-MandrakeReally don't see how they can enforce it, particularly on linux distrosIt's pretty simple: they see a company not doing anything to comply, they sue. Now, whether it'll hold up in Supreme Court, that's a question - though not one that's anyone eager to answer, especially of the lawsuit started first on a red state that implements a similar law.
The law itself is pretty clear about what counts as a violation and what's the fine. The problem that isn't clear is how they expect OS vendor to comply, in the technical sense, and what counts as "negligent" and "intentional" violation (I would assume not doing anything at all would count as intentional).
This is unfortunately a legal matter - you can't think as a user or as a dev, you have to think as legal entities.
Again, the only way out really is to get the laws amended or challenged in Supreme Court, neither of which are easy. My main worry is with other countries, especially EU if I'm being honest - they can more likely to overreach with their version of the law and I'm not sure how you'd challenge them.
fenglengshun 2 hours ago
Quoting: Stellawhat about Docker containers???? Do I need to enter my age for every single Docker container that gets created? In companies they get created and destroyed by the thousand each day. This is beyond ridiculous.Presumably, no. Fedora has the right mind of how it'll look like - docker can just inherit the user age bracket data as part of its initialization process. Could also just check for user's group, since they also care about `docker` group anyways.
Last edited by tohur on 4 Mar 2026 at 2:58 pm UTC
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
fenglengshun 1 hour ago
Quoting: CarollyHonestly just slap a "not legal to use in California" label on the OS and be done with it.I mean. They could still sue you. Your Terms of Service and EULA is only as good as your legal team and how much money you have.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I feel like everyone is so optimistic that they can't be sued because the alternative is taking it seriously and it's scary, as well as involves compromises on things that traditionally we don't care for (but now have to because law is law).
Quoting: Stellawhat about Docker containers???? Do I need to enter my age for every single Docker container that gets created? In companies they get created and destroyed by the thousand each day. This is beyond ridiculous.Of course my friend this is an easy solution! We the benevolent hyper intelligent best ever government of all time United States of Murica will simply dispatch a government monitor employee lizard I mean human being to help you click the proper boxes that we will mandate that totally exist when you are creating those docksners so the lizard I mean human being can report back and ensure everything is on the up and up.
Quoting: fenglengshunA majority of distros aren't even based in the US, so good luck with that.Quoting: CarollyHonestly just slap a "not legal to use in California" label on the OS and be done with it.I mean. They could still sue you. Your Terms of Service and EULA is only as good as your legal team and how much money you have.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I feel like everyone is so optimistic that they can't be sued because the alternative is taking it seriously and it's scary, as well as involves compromises on things that traditionally we don't care for (but now have to because law is law).
But I'd imagine it would just be thrown out of court regardless. California cannot impose their laws outside of their own jurisdiction. There's a reason that products sold in my country don't carry Prop 65 labels, and there's a reason that most products sold in America don't, either. If it were that simple the California AG would be suing people left, right, and centre for failing to comply with Prop 65 labeling legislation outside of state.
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