After facing public backlash, California lawmakers are considering exempting open-source operating systems from the broad age-bracketing requirements mandated by last year's **Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043)**. Despite this potential improvement, the current bill still poses significant risks to internet users' speech, privacy, and security. While the open-source exemption, if enacted, would mitigate some of the law's negative impacts, the remaining amendments proposed by **AB 1856** would mandate that all web browsers and websites request and collect users' ages. This represents an expansion of AB 1043's age-bracketing system, exacerbating its constitutional infringements on users' speech, privacy, and security. As AB 1856 advances to the Senate, the **Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)** will continue to advocate for amendments that minimize these harms. ### AB 1856 Extends AB 1043’s Age-Gating Regime Last year, California passed AB 1043, which requires all operating systems and app stores to implement age-bracketing systems that categorize users based on their age. As the EFF has previously argued, this framework creates opportunities for censorship, imposes unnecessary and unconstitutional barriers to accessing lawful online speech, threatens anonymity, and pressures online services to collect vast amounts of sensitive user data. Moreover, AB 1043's extensive compliance burdens disproportionately affect the open-source ecosystem that underpins much of the modern web. In response to these shortcomings, lawmakers introduced AB 1856 this year, ostensibly as a "clean-up" bill for AB 1043. However, rather than focusing solely on addressing AB 1043's specific and significant harms (such as its impact on open-source operating systems), AB 1856 has broadened the scope of the regime, extending its age-bracketing requirements to browsers and websites. The EFF opposed AB 1856 on two primary grounds, as outlined in their opposition letter to the Assembly: 1. The harms that age-gating regimes pose to users' speech, privacy, and anonymity. 2. The disproportionate harms that this particular regime imposes on open-source developers. ### Open Source Concerns Somewhat Alleviated By Amendment On May 28th, AB 1856 passed the Assembly with a near-unanimous vote (68-1). Prior to the vote, AB 1856 was amended to ease the compliance burden on open-source operating systems. This is a significant improvement and a welcome relief for open-source developers, who have voiced strong concerns about the existential threat that AB 1043's age-gating mandate would pose. The new exception states: > “Operating system provider” does not mean a person or entity that distributes an operating system or application under license terms that permit a recipient to copy, redistribute, and modify the software.” The EFF interprets this amendment as exempting open-source operating systems from the requirement to collect and transmit users' age-bracket data. This is a clear victory for open-source developers. The bill is now narrower than it was previously, and lawmakers have clearly responded to concerns raised by the EFF and the broader open-source community. Some important questions remain unanswered. For instance, it is unclear how the law would apply when an open-source operating system is integrated into a commercial product or service. Additionally, given the placement of the exemption within the "operating system provider" definition, lawmakers could clarify that the exemption applies to both open-source operating systems *and* applications. Nevertheless, even with this ambiguity, the amendment significantly reduces the potential harm that AB 1043 could inflict on many open-source developers. ### AB 1856 Still Expands the Problematic Age-Bracketing Regime Even with this improvement, the EFF remains opposed to AB 1856 because it ultimately extends California's sweeping age-bracketing framework far beyond the original scope of AB 1043. In AB 1856 and its amendments, the Assembly failed to address the fundamental problem with AB 1043's age-bracketing regime: mandated age-gating systems threaten users' speech, privacy, anonymity, and security. Even though AB 1043 does not explicitly require companies to perform age verification, it nonetheless establishes a liability structure that strongly encourages companies to verify users' ages. In practice, this could lead to more ID checks, more biometric scanning, more invasive data collection and increased risk of data breaches, and more barriers to lawful speech for both adults and young people. Instead of narrowing AB 1043's reach, AB 1856 *expanded* it to include browser providers and website operators in the list of entities that must comply with its age-bracketing requirements. This dramatically broadens the scope of AB 1043 and pulls more services, developers, and users into an anonymity- and privacy-destroying data collection framework that has yet to be fully implemented or evaluated. The result would make it nearly impossible for regular internet users to avoid AB 1043's age gates. ### The Fight Moves to the Senate For these reasons, the EFF will continue to oppose AB 1856. Although it has passed the Assembly, the fight is not over. As the bill moves through the Senate, we will continue to advocate for amendments that genuinely "clean up" and narrow the scope of AB 1043, and offer greater protection to users from the harms of age-gating systems.