I don't understand why apps need to know anything about a specific age. If we have to go down this road, which I really don't, why can't we just simply have verification whether or not an age fits within a range better yet a category. Yes, age can still be inferred, for example, under 21 or over 21.

The API behaves this way:

> To request a user's age range and sharing status, you call the Play Age Signals API (beta) from your app at runtime. The default age ranges the API returns are 0-12, 13-15, 16-17, and 18+, but you can receive custom age ranges.

https://developer.android.com/google/play/age-signals/use-ag...

But I don't find it any better. I don't see any viable reason to provide identification to my phone's OS. If a parent buys a phone for their child, they can already set up parental controls before handing it over.

I wish Motorola all the best with their GrapheneOS partnership.

Because it's not about age at all. That's just ruse to get a lever to lock people out of their devices if they don't behave.

Laws have been written that mandate that applications and services treat various age ranges differently. You can't serve porn to kids, kids under 15/16 have very strict privacy regulations in some areas, and certain content age ratings are an industry standard only because that was the industry way of getting out of being regulated.

For kids this is a privacy risk because there are so many thresholds. Once you're above 18, all you need to care about is "are you a pensioner".

Kids have been lying about their age since the dawn of the internet and people have started catching on, so now we're getting actual restrictions rather than the assertion that nobody in their right mind would click "I am 18 or older" to access a website.

Californian law mandates that operating systems keep track of their users' age, so of course Android must follow. In all of the cases listed on Google's blog, though, the option to not share information and download an app that doesn't ask for your age range is still an option.

This isn't aimed at you specifically, but I think many technologists seem to innately misunderstand the slippery slope hypothesis which helps form the bedrock of American politics.

Too many seem to fall into the familiar problem-solving mode, ready to provide compromises or solutions while forgetting that once the infrastructure is in place, it can easily be modified later to undo the compromises which facilitated its acceptance in the first place. There is an inherent power asymmetry and it's not generally in favor of those building and using the infrastructure.

Because it has never been merely about age only.

They want to track everyone now. Age sniffing is just one additional step for forcing verification. This will continue - see how suspiciously many countries adopt new legislation. It is quite fascinating to me to see how easy it is to kill off democracies.