Apple is now blocking app downloads across three countries and wiring age data directly into developers’ apps, all in the name of compliance. It’s also bringing some of these features to some US states that are demanding compliance with digital ID checks.
Starting this week, users in Australia, Brazil, and Singapore can no longer download apps rated 18+ without first confirming they’re adults. The App Store handles that age confirmation automatically, which sounds tidy but raises the obvious question: how does Apple know? The company isn’t detailing the mechanism, only noting that developers may still face separate compliance requirements on top of what Apple handles.
The broader rollout centers on an updated Declared Age Range API, now in beta, that lets developers request a user’s age category without accessing raw personal data like a date of birth.
Apple informed developers of the expansion on Tuesday. The API is the company’s preferred technical answer to a wave of government laws restricting social media and adult content to users 18 and older.
Reclaim Your Digital Freedom.
Get unfiltered coverage of surveillance, censorship, and the technology threatening your civil liberties.
In Brazil, that API integration includes an update specific to loot boxes, the gambling-adjacent mechanic that lets players pay real money for randomized in-game rewards. Apps containing loot boxes will now carry automatic 18+ age ratings in Brazil, regardless of what developers self-reported previously.
The US expansion lands in Utah and Louisiana first, where new users will have their age categories pushed to developers automatically through the same API. Apple says it has extended its age ratings tools more broadly to meet its compliance obligations.
“New signals are now available through the Declared Age Range API, including whether age-related regulatory requirements apply to the user and if the user is required to share their age range,” reads the Apple blog post. “The API will also let you know if you need to get a parent or guardian’s permission for significant app updates for a child.”
What Apple calls “age assurance” is, functionally, identity screening at the app layer. Every time a user hits a download wall or an app requests their age category, Apple’s system makes a determination about who they are and what they’re allowed to access. That determination has to come from somewhere.
Apple hasn’t disclosed what signals feed into the automatic age confirmation it’s now running in Australia, Brazil, and Singapore, but the options are limited: device account data, payment records, prior verification submissions, or some combination. “Automatic” doesn’t mean passive. It means the surveillance already happened.
Government ID checks are the logical endpoint of this trajectory. Once this technology is introduced, you can bet governments will be wanting Apple to verify actual government-issued IDs. Some are already calling for it.
