Legislators have introduced age restrictions on many websites and applications in different parts of the world. Many are now looking to follow suit, including the European Union.

What this means in practice is age verification in applications or websites. To pass, users will have to share their personal data — IDs, credit card numbers or pictures of themselves — with third parties who use these to determine the user's age. The first data leaks have already happened.

The state of California has passed a law that obligates operating system creators to verify the age of users. This entails asking for the user's age when they register an account to then be able to share the user's age bracket with applications and websites.

Similar bills are in the works in Colorado and New York. In Brazil, a comparable law will enter into force on March 17.

It looks like the laws in California and Colorado will be easy enough to bypass: the user can just lie about their age because the bills seemingly do not require verification. This manner of age control differs little from a popup window asking the user to confirm they're an adult.

However, the New York bill requires age verification when setting up an operating system account using measures to be determined by the state attorney general. This would likely mean bringing into operating systems the kinds of measures currently common in apps and websites that involve sharing personal data. In essence, users would have to share personal data "with third parties just to be able to use a computer."

The term "operating system" makes most people think of Windows, macOS, Android or iOS. But operating systems also run servers, smart watches, smart TVs, speakers, fridges, car multimedia systems, routers and other devices we use to connect to the internet.

Do some politicians really think that we should be required to present our ID to get food out of a smart fridge? Or that their speaker should refuse to play metal music if the listener is not 18 years of age?

These bills generally cover operating systems that are connected to the internet and have app stores. But even some e-readers, which by the way do run internet-capable operating systems, can be "jailbroken" to allow the installation of apps from app stores or other sources despite the manufacturer's intentions.

Open-source operating systems, like various BSDs or Linux distributions, pose another problem. If macOS and Windows have a central administrator with whom users register their accounts and who is then held responsible, the former often lack such a controller.

Why worry about foolish legislative output on the other side of the world? Because age restrictions that fuel the fire of mass surveillance under the pretext of protecting children were also first introduced in Australia and the UK. Just like laws introduced in America could inspire European politicians to expand age control. The fact that many tech firms operate out of America makes it likely these changes will affect users elsewhere anyway.

Cory Doctorow has written:

"We don't know how to build a general-purpose computer that is capable of running any program except for some program that we don't like, is prohibited by law or which loses us money. The closest approximation that we have to this is a computer with spyware."

All of the aforementioned devices are basically universal computers these days. Mandatory age verification in operating systems is yet another piece of legal spyware that needlessly restricts user freedoms.

A holistic approach prioritizing privacy would be a more effective way to protect children and all other users. At the heart of such an approach would be attempts to decisively rein in surveillance capitalism, coupled with educating users and protecting their freedoms. Instead, politicians prefer seemingly "simple" technical solutions enabling mass surveillance and censorship.

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