California Age-Appropriate Design Code
What it does
The Age-Appropriate Design Code makes online services estimate the age of their users and apply the strongest privacy and safety settings to anyone judged to be a minor. Estimating everyone's age is the price of complying, and the code gives the state a hand in how products are designed.
Why it matters
This is the design-code model, copied by Maryland, Vermont, and Nebraska. The Ninth Circuit gave a split ruling in NetChoice v. Bonta, striking some data and dark-pattern rules on vagueness grounds but reviving the age-estimation requirement, so the age-checking core is still alive.
Our take
Age estimation is age verification with a softer name. Even where courts trimmed the law, the part that makes platforms guess how old you are survived, and that is the part that ends anonymous browsing.
Votes
- Assembly — Passed unanimously · August 30, 2022
- Senate — Passed unanimously · August 30, 2022
Legal challenges
Second Ninth Circuit ruling, March 2026: data-use and dark-pattern rules stay enjoined as likely vague; the age-estimation challenge went back to the district court
Related bills
Our coverage: all age-verification stories