SB 180 testimony from Nicole Lopez, Safety Policy Director for Youth at Meta

I was pointing out Senate Bill 180 earlier today, the bill proposing to require age verification before an individual may access an application from an online application store.  Specifically, the joint letter from Meta, Snap Inc, and X on the measure and how some of the larger internet companies viewed the need for parental verification.

Nicole Lopez, Safety Policy Director for Youth at Meta testified on the measure, and offered the following testimony to help clear up some myths about age verification:

South Dakota Senate Judiciary Hearing
Nicole Lopez – Oral Testimony
Feb 18, 2025

Chair Wheeler, Vice Chair Hulse, and members of the Committee, it’s nice to see many of you again and thank you for the opportunity to be here.

My name is Nicole Lopez and I am the Safety Policy Director for Youth at Meta. Many of you heard from me during the Summer Study about the merits of requiring app stores to age verify and obtain parental consent anytime a teen under 16 tries to download an app – a solution to online teen safety that Meta has been advocating for since 2023.

Since I was last in Pierre, this solution to age verification online has already been formally introduced in 8 states, with nearly 20% of all states now considering app-store age verification and parental consent bills – and more expected. The broad support of parents and organizations across political and ideological spectrums should not be ignored.

But the bill we are talking about today is not the same as what I was advocating for last summer, because SD Senate Bill 180 is modeled off Utah UT SB 142 currently being led by Utah Parents United and the Digital Progress Institute. So while different from what Meta proposed, we do support it. But I want to be clear that this is not a “Meta” bill.

I don’t think I need to get into how the concept of app store age verification and parental consent works or what the merits are again – beyond the facts that this solution makes it (1) easy on parents; (2) gives parents control; (3) and does so in a privacy-protective way – while also ensuring that teens are protected across the ecosystem of the 40+ apps that teens use *on average* every week. Further, this is what parents want: A Morning Consult poll found that nearly 80% of American parents support legislation that would require parental approval for children under 16 to download apps.

Instead, I want to spend the duration of my time addressing head on the arguments that we are seeing in opposition. In doing so, I hope to dispel some of the repeated myths and scapegoats, so that we can continue a substantive dialogue about the best ways to provide supportive and age-appropriate online experiences for South Dakota teens.

Claim: Meta supports app-store-based age verification only to push the responsibility off to Apple and Google.

• Facts:
  • Meta–and other–apps–aren’t abandoning age assurance. We recognize that people may still find ways to bypass what we think is the most viable solution here, and so we will continue to use AI and age verification checkpoints to catch the age liars–there will just be fewer age liars.
  • Further, we have already embraced this responsibility: Meta has its own virtual reality app store in our Meta Quest platform and has already integrated this solution. We believe all app stores should follow suit.
  • Finally, we aren’t “passing the buck” off to Apple/Google because they: (1) already collect this limited info, and (2) have an existing infrastructure in place and share the information through their existing APIs (e.g. I as a parent will get a “consent to purchase” ping on my phone if my kid wants to buy apps or make purchases within apps).

Claim: App-store-based age verification shields bad actors by pushing the onerous age verification off the platforms. 

• Fact:
  • By requiring age verification at a single entry-point of the device’s applications, bad actors will have a more difficult time misrepresenting their age across the entire app ecosystem. This is because all the apps downloaded to a device will have the same age signal about the user, including smaller or newer apps without the same resources to accurately age verify as larger, more established apps.

Claim: Technical implementation will burden small companies, and will not be as simple as implied. 

• Facts:
  • The opposite is true. SD SB 180 would make app stores responsible for verifying ages and obtaining parental consent – NOT individual app developers – mitigating the need for each individual application to build their own system to collect, store, and secure large amounts of sensitive user data While large app developers like Meta may have the resources to safely age verify – we are just one company in the app ecosystem. And since app stores would be responsible for verifying age and consent, smaller and newer app developers with fewer resources will be spared from steep liability costs associated with enforcement and litigation of setting up their own age verification processes or enlisting other third parties to do so on their behalf, which could introduce more privacy risks.

• An app store approach effectively reduces barriers for new and smaller developers — providing a healthier competitive market.

Claim: Age verification laws continue to be challenged and are likely to be found unconstitutional. 

• Facts:
  • An app store age verification law has not been considered by any court. Instead, courts have recognized the serious constitutional concerns around laws that selectively implement age verification and/or parental consent on only a subset of the many websites and apps available on the internet. Legislation that implements age verification and parental consent at the app store level can help ameliorate constitutional concerns that governments should not single out particular speakers or types of speech for unique regulatory burdens, and may be more likely to withstand legal challenge, so long as the the requirements apply equally to all apps and online services, regardless of the content, revenue, or identity of the speaker. An app store solution would do exactly that.
  • A simple, streamlined mechanism at the app store level would also significantly reduce the burden on both minor and adult users to access protected speech online.

Claim: There are “better” ways to protect children from access to mature content, specifically parental controls and education for parents.

• Facts:
  • There is no single silver bullet to protecting teens online – and we agree with a multi-layered, holistic approach that includes education and parental But app developers have to know the age of users and who their parents are, in order to offer said controls like the ones Meta provides, including the ability to set time limits and restrict inappropriate content for teens.
  • With required app store age verification, all apps – not just Meta apps – will be able to more accurately place teens into age-appropriate experiences (like Instagram Teen Accounts) that have built-in parental

In closing, there will never be a solution that 100% of people agree with. But we are all here today because we all care about protecting teens online and it is our collective responsibility. Not just on a handful of apps, but across the entire online ecosystem. And every single proposal in doing so requires applications to know the age of users. Senate Bill 180 is the mechanism to achieve this industrywide, that can be easily implemented, and that would have an immediate impact.

Thank you.