Congress mandates age checks and parental consent for app downloads

What it does

This bill requires app stores serving over 5 million U.S. users to verify the age of account holders, obtain parental consent for minors, and disclose to parents what data apps collect and share before allowing downloads or purchases. App developers must respect these age verifications, notify app stores of major changes, and cannot share age data with third parties. The FTC enforces the rules; states can sue for violations.

Why we flagged it

The bill's core function is to impose age verification, parental consent, and data-transparency requirements on app stores and developers to protect minors. This is a regulatory mandate, not a tax provision, subsidy, or commemorative measure.

What the text implies

• App stores will need to implement or upgrade age-verification infrastructure, creating operational and compliance costs that may be passed to consumers or smaller developers.
• The requirement for parental consent before any minor download or in-app purchase may reduce app engagement and revenue from the under-18 demographic, affecting app-store commission revenue.
• Real-time age-category signals sent to app developers create a new data stream; the bill restricts third-party sharing but does not prohibit app developers from using this signal for behavioral targeting within their own apps.
• The 1-year compliance window and FTC certification mechanism may create a de facto safe harbor for large platforms that achieve early certification, while smaller or non-compliant stores face enforcement action.
• Preemption of state law (Section 9) prevents states from imposing stricter age-verification or data-protection rules, potentially limiting future state-level innovation in child privacy.

Who it affects

Ordinary citizens—especially parents and minors—gain meaningful protections: mandatory age verification, required parental consent for minors, transparency about data collection, and enforcement mechanisms. The compliance burden on app stores and developers is material but justified by the public interest in child safety and parental control.

Who stands to gain

• Age-verification technology vendors
• Parental-control software providers
• Compliance and legal consulting firms
• Large app stores with resources to implement systems quickly

Named in the bill

Federal Trade Commission (FTC), App store providers (Apple, Google, Amazon, etc.), App developers, State attorneys general, Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), Mobile device manufacturers

Where it stands

• May 1, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
• May 1, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation”

Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.

Money around this bill

33 lobbying clients named this bill on 44 disclosure filings across 3 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $30,255,909 in lobbying spend. A filing names 11 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.

More lobbying clients named this bill than 98% of bills with at least one filing.

Mike Lee, the sponsor, reported $241,000 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.

• Google Client Services LLC — $6,920,000 on 2 filings
• Meta Platforms, Inc. and Various Subsidiaries — $5,990,000 on 1 filing
• Entertainment Software Association — $2,810,000 on 2 filings
• Apple Inc — $2,740,000 on 1 filing
• American Association for Justice — $1,840,000 on 1 filing

Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.