Bill requiring app stores to verify age for minors in Alabama stalls in House committee
Rep. Chris Sells, R-Greenville, speaks to a colleague on the floor of the Alabama House of Representatives on Feb. 12, 2025 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
A bill that would require app stores to verify the age of individuals creating accounts in Alabama will likely not become law this year.
The House State Government Committee was set Tuesday to consider SB 187, sponsored by Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville. But the committee did not have a quorum for its scheduled meeting, preventing a vote on the bill.
With just two days left in the 2025 legislative session, the committee would have to meet Wednesday to give the bill a chance of passage on May 14, the last scheduled day of the session, but Rep. Chris Sells, R-Greenville, the chair of the committee, indicated that legislation will be worked on over the summer to be introduced in the next legislative session.
The bill would require app stores to obtain parental consent for users identified as minors before they can download or purchase apps or make in-app purchases. The bill would have also prohibited developers from enforcing disclosures or terms of service on minors without parental consent.
'Apps would have to be approved by the parent and be age-appropriate for the child, so that would take care of the problem of the phones that are already out there, and that's what this is about, protecting children,' said Sells, who sponsored a similar bill in the House.
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A companion bill, SB 186, also sponsored by Chambliss, was passed by both chambers and sent to Gov. Kay Ivey Thursday. It will require smartphones and tablets manufactured on or after June 1 and activated in Alabama include a pre-installed filter capable of blocking obscene material. Sells said that 'will address the issue going forward.'
Justin Hill, a spokesperson for NetChoice advocating for limited internet government control, free speech and enterprise across the country aid 'we all agree on the why' for the bill, but disagreed on the basis of free speech. He suggested that the bill could face legal challenges.
'There are 17 states where this bill was filed, they run afoul of the First Amendment in our belief. And we do a lot of work in this space. We have a litigation team that litigates a lot of similar bills. This one has not made it to the point of litigation yet,' Hill said.
NetChoice has sued or is in litigation with at least 12 states. Georgia was sued in March after passing a law that would require children to acquire parental consent to use social media.
Melea Stephens, a Birmingham marriage and family therapist and a board member of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, claimed to have seen cases in her private practice of children 'being exploited on commonly used apps.' She said that minors are entering contracts with 'multibillion dollar companies when they sign up for an app without parental permission.'
'We do not allow minors to go into a bank and sign a contract because they cannot comprehend the risk involved,' Stephens said, adding that the legislation is 'based on contract law, not content moderation or free speech issues.'
Rachel Holland, a spokesperson for Meta, a vocal proponent of the legislation, said in an email after the bill's passage that they look forward to working with lawmakers on this legislation.
'Parents want a one-stop shop to verify their teen's age and grant permission for them to download apps in a privacy-preserving way. The app store is the best place for it, and one-third of US states and the US Congress have introduced bills recognizing the central role app stores play,' she said in a statement.
Holland also cited a poll from the Alabama Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, suggesting 83% of voters support parental approval in app stores.
Rep. Russell Bedsole, R-Alabaster, said that 'whether or not this legislation is the right piece,' he feels that parents need help monitoring children's behavior online. He said that he uses a service that requires his children to ask for permission before downloading an app on their phone. Despite approving apps that seemed harmless to his children, Bedsole said there was still some unwanted content in the form of advertising or surveys.
Bedsole said that despite these concerns, lawmakers should work with groups like NetChoice to address them because of their complexity.
'We've got to have someone who represents the development of these apps to be at the table, because the technology behind it is so complex that, as a parent alone, I need some help,' Bedsole said.
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Reporters Elena Perry, Thomas Clouse, Emry Dinman and Corbin Vanderby contributed to this report. Elena Perry's work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper's managing editor.
