A new bill in Congress is called the "Parents Decide Act". It is yet another child safety bill that is designed to compromise your privacy.
The bill is H.R. 8250. It was brought to the House by Rep. Josh Gottheimer and Rep. Elise Stefanik. The name makes it sound like parents get new tools to help their kids online. What it actually does is broadcast your private information to every website you visit so they can track you.
H.R. 8250 would force every computer, phone, tablet, and console in America to do three things:
- Ask for your birthday before it will let you use it.
- If you are under 18, make one of your parents prove your age.
- Hand your birthday over to any app that asks for it.
The first two are dressed up like parent controls. The third one is the real problem.
Your birthday is a tracking number
Most people do not think of their birthday as private, but it is a crucial piece of information for data aggregators.
In 1997, a researcher named Latanya Sweeney proved that just three pieces of information can identify 87% of Americans. Those three pieces are your birthday, your ZIP code, and whether you are male or female.
That means if a website knows your birthday and where you live, it can almost always figure out who you are by name.
Right now, apps cannot ask your computer for your birthday. This bill would change that by forcing your computer to hand your birthday to any app that wants it.
This does not just apply to kids
Every user has to give a birthday, even adults.
The bill says it is about protecting children, but the pipe it builds inside your computer carries everyone's birthday, not just kids. Your mom, your grandpa, you: everyone hands it over.
Advertisers will grab it right away
Your web browser is an app. If your computer is telling apps your birthday, websites will get it too.
Advertisers love this kind of information. They use it like a barcode at a grocery store. Once they know your birthday, they can:
- Follow you from website to website and know what websites you visit
- Sell your name and address to other companies
- Send you junk mail and spam calls
- Build a profile about you that follows you around the Internet
Parents have to prove they are parents
The bill says a parent has to confirm when their kid is under 18. It does not say how.
Congress passed that part off to a government agency called the FTC. The FTC has to figure out the rules later. In real life, that means one of two things:
- Parents have to show a government ID to use any computer.
- A private company gets to check everyone's ID and keep the records.
Either way, something new sits between you, your family, and your computer.
The bill makes Linux impossible
The bill says the rules apply to every "operating system provider." An operating system is the main software that runs your computer.
The bill also covers anyone who develops or licenses an operating system. There is no rule that says it only applies to big companies
That means the bill will impact:
- Volunteers who make free operating systems like Ubuntu and Debian
- A dad who builds a tiny computer for his garage door
- A college student who writes their own operating system for fun
- Companies that put custom software on office computers
None of these people can build a big age verification system. Most of them are one person with a laptop. The bill does not care. It treats the person who created Linux the same as Apple.
Applies to any "general purpose computing device"
The bill tries to limit itself with the phrase 'general purpose computing device,' but never defines what that means. That leaves the FTC to decide later.
We can safely assume this means you have to supply an ID to use any of the following:
- Game consoles
- Smart TVs
- Smart Watches
- Car Infotainment Systems
- E-Readers (Kindle, Kobo)
- Raspberry Pis used for your garage door opener
All of these devices blasting your personally identifying information to anything that asks for it.
There is a better way, and Congress did not take it
A few states have tried similar laws: California tried one last year. It also has problems, but it tries to protect privacy a little. Instead of handing your exact birthday to apps, it hands over a simple yes or no answer: "Is this person over 18?"
That is not perfect. It still tracks you, but it is much safer than what H.R. 8250 does.
Congress could have picked this safer path but chose to broadcast your exact date of birth.
The trade is bad
H.R. 8250 trades a small, uncertain benefit for a huge, certain harm.
The benefit: maybe fewer kids see adult content. Maybe. If the system works. Which it will not, because kids know how to lie about their age and use their parents' accounts.
The harm: every adult and every child hands over their birthday to every app on their computer, forever, with no way to turn it off. That information will leak. It will be stolen. It will be sold. Once it is out, it cannot be put back.
That is not a trade, it is a downgrade dressed up as protection.
What you can do
This bill is new and has not passed. Most bills like this never do. However, the authors will keep trying, and the more people who speak up now, the harder it is to pass down the road.
Please write your House representative and tell them you do not want H.R. 8250. You can find your representative here.
Tell them what the bill really does. Tell them you do not want your birthday handed out to every app. Tell them Congress should try again.
USIPS has formally opposed H.R. 8250 in writing to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Legislation
H.R. 8250 would force operating system providers to collect every user's date of birth and expose it to any application on the device through a mandatory programmatic interface. The mandate applies to all users, not only minors, and reaches every general-purpose computing device including phones, tablets, consoles, smart TVs, e-readers, and embedded devices.
Our Response
USIPS opposes H.R. 8250 and, as a matter of principle, all legislation imposing age verification on operating systems, devices, app stores, or platforms. The bill industrializes online surveillance by handing date-of-birth — the single most useful re-identification field — to every app, with no carve-out for adults, open-source maintainers, or hobbyists. We urge committee members to reject the bill and decline to co-sponsor any successor legislation following the same architecture.