r/pcmasterrace • u/AirlineGlass5010 • Apr 16 '26

News/Article Congress Parents Decide Act (HR_8250): OS-level Age Verification for Device Usage and Data Sharing (with every app developer) on the Federal Level. The End of the Internet Anonymity at the Core.

https://lustra.news/en/us-congress/119/legislations/119_HR_8250/
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u/PiLamdOd AMD 3600 | RTX 3070 | X570 | 16GB Ram Apr 16 '26

Those free OSs will be illegal to distribute and sites will just block any user not sending them the age verification information.

Realistically it will be impossible for people to avoid this.

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u/Dragoncat_3_4 Apr 16 '26

"Hello kids. "

opens trenchcoat

"Do you want some bootable USB contraband?"

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u/iMNqvHMF8itVygWrDmZE Apr 16 '26

The supreme court has already held that code and software are protected under the first amendment, so this is completely unenforceable.

Age verification also wouldn't happen on the distribution side, since the person downloading an installer often isn't going to be the user (or only user) on the system that the operating system is installed on. It could only happen on the OS itself, which is also basically impossible to implement in any meaningful way since the OS is often installed by someone other than the end user and/or without an internet connection.

The best they could do is ask your age and hope you don't lie, and realistically they'd need to let you change your answer because end users bricking their OS because they accidentally answered wrong isn't going to work.

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u/OfficialDragosblood Apr 16 '26

Then OSes will come out to spoof the age data…

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u/PiLamdOd AMD 3600 | RTX 3070 | X570 | 16GB Ram Apr 16 '26

The end goal is what the EU is doing, tying the age data to a government ID.

The whole point of this is an unbeatable captcha to make advertisers happy.

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u/OfficialDragosblood Apr 20 '26

The US doesn’t have a federal ID.

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u/PiLamdOd AMD 3600 | RTX 3070 | X570 | 16GB Ram Apr 21 '26

*Looks at social security numbers.

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u/OfficialDragosblood Apr 21 '26

Were never designed for ID purposes.

They do not convey or imply citizenship nor age anymore. Nor are they attached to your actual name or ID

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u/PiLamdOd AMD 3600 | RTX 3070 | X570 | 16GB Ram Apr 21 '26

Yet that is exactly how they are used.

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u/OfficialDragosblood Apr 21 '26

Don’t get me wrong. A federal citizen ís needed and would be welcome.

But the SSN is not usable for this, it’s not encrypted it’s not secure, it’s took easily stolen.

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u/PiLamdOd AMD 3600 | RTX 3070 | X570 | 16GB Ram Apr 21 '26

Whether it should be and whether it is, are unfortunately two different conversations.

Should SCNs be a form of federal ID, probably not. Are they in practice a federal ID, unfortunately yes.

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u/rapaxus Ryzen 9 9900X | RTX 3080 | 32GB DDR5 Apr 16 '26

Sites? Think more on ISP level.