Overview

• California’s AB 1043 advances a framework that assigns users to four categories—under 13, 13–16, 16–18, and adult—without requiring photo IDs.
• Apple’s Declared Age Range API, available now, is designed to share only age bands with developers rather than birthdays or documents.
• Under Apple’s model, minors creating new accounts are routed into Family Sharing so guardians can provide consent for purchases and downloads.
• Texas’s age-assurance law takes effect on January 1, 2026, with publishers expecting California’s enforcement roughly a year later.
• In California’s approach, parents enter a child’s age during device setup and the operating system enforces age gates while developers adjust features, ads, and data handling to match the declared band.