America is Checking Who is Old Enough; Nobody is Checking Who is Young Enough

America is Checking Who is Old Enough; Nobody is Checking Who is Young Enough

Child safety expert Kirra Pendergast warns of a political blind spot in America's emerging verification laws.

ALEXANDRIA, VA / ACCESS Newswire / October 15, 2026 / As age checks move onto phones and app stores, child safety expert Kirra Pendergast warns that the new system demands proof from adults and takes children's ages on trust. Predators have always exploited that kind of trust.

For years, America's fight over children online has been about one direction of travel, children getting into the adult internet. The laws now arriving on phones and app stores are built to stop that. Kirra Pendergast, founder of Safe on Social and one of the world's most experienced online child safety specialists, says they have been built with a blind side. They ask for proof from anyone who claims to be an adult. They ask for none from anyone who claims to be a child.

In Texas, where app store age checks have been law since late May, an adult proves their age with a credit card in their own name, a scan of government ID or a check of their existing Apple account. A child's age is a birthday typed in at setup, by the user or by whoever acts as their parent. At most, the system checks the adult who vouches for the child. Nothing in the published process checks that the child is a child.

"We have built a lock that only turns one way," Pendergast said. "Everybody is arguing about whether a 12-year-old can sneak into the adult internet. Far too few people are asking whether a 45-year-old can sneak into the children's one. Right now they can, and all they have to do is type a different birthday."

Proof only flows upward

Pornhub's parent company, Aylo, has pulled its site out of 23 states, including Texas, Utah and Florida, rather than check ID itself, and argues that device makers should do the checking instead. Lawmakers are moving in that direction. Utah and Louisiana have passed app store age-check laws, now delayed to 2027, and Alabama has followed. From January 2027, California will require every operating system to ask for a user's age at setup and pass an age signal to apps. Under California's law, no proof of age is required.

"This is not a future problem. It is already live in Texas," Pendergast said. "The question of who counts as a child is being answered right now, in settings screens, by default. And the default is to take everyone's word for it."

A filter that becomes a key

Pendergast is clear that protective defaults are the right place to start. A phone that switches on protections for anyone it believes is a child is doing its job. The danger comes when the same signal is given a second job. Under California's law, apps must ask the operating system for a user's age bracket and treat it as the primary indicator of that user's age. A signal built to filter what a child sees is about to decide who a child meets.

"A content filter protects the person holding the phone," Pendergast said. "It does nothing for the children that person goes on to contact. Posing as younger is a well-documented grooming tactic. If 'child' means 'somebody typed a child's birthday,' we are not closing that door. We are labeling it safe."

The market has already shown what happens next. When Roblox tied chat to age checks so that users could only talk to people in a similar age band, WIRED found age-verified accounts for children as young as nine for sale on eBay within days, for about $4. eBay removed the listings, and Roblox's terms prohibit buying or selling accounts. The lesson stands. The moment a platform promises that verified children will only meet verified children, a child-verified account becomes something worth buying, faking or borrowing.

Power at the top, liability at the bottom

Pendergast went looking for the rule that closes the gap. Apple's Declared Age Range tool can tell a developer whether an age was confirmed or merely declared, if the developer chooses to look. Apple tells developers they are solely responsible for meeting the law. California's law says an operating system that makes a good-faith effort is not liable for a wrong age signal. What she could not find, from any regulator or from Apple or Google, was guidance on stopping adults from being handed child status at the device level.

"Look at how this has been designed," Pendergast said. "The power to decide who is a child sits with the biggest companies on earth. The liability for getting it wrong sits with the app developer at the bottom of the chain. Apple is becoming the certificate authority for childhood. One company, and not a regulator or a legislature, is deciding what counts as proof of age for tens of millions of Americans. Those rules are being written in a settings screen. They should be written in public, where parents, teachers and kids can read them and argue with them."

This is not an argument against age checks. It is an argument for finishing them.

Pendergast is calling on every platform and every lawmaker to answer three questions before the next bill is signed:

1. When an app says "children only," is it relying on a confirmed child age, or merely a birthday nobody checked?

2. Who checks that a child account is still being used by a child once setup is over?

3. California has already decided the operating system is not liable for a wrong age signal. When an adult does get inside, is the app the only one who answers for it?

"I have put hard questions to this industry face to face before, and I have watched it move within 24 hours when it wanted to," Pendergast said. "These three can be answered now. If a platform or a legislator cannot answer them, the system is not ready for our children."

Read Kirra Pendergast's original commentary: Who is checking that the child is a child?

About Safe on Social Inc.

Safe on Social, powered by Ctrl+Shft has worked at the frontline of digital safety since 2013, building more than a decade of Earned Intelligence™ from the real-world experiences of schools, educators, families, and communities.

Founded by bestselling author and digital safety expert Kirra Pendergast, that frontline knowledge now powers Ctrl+Shft, a Behavioral Risk Intelligence platform designed to identify emerging patterns of digital and behavioral risk earlier, document duty of care, and help organizations act before concerning signals become serious harm.

Through its US entity, Safe on Social Inc. works with public and private schools to bring together education, risk intelligence, and governance through one connected system, helping make technology a safer and more positive part of school life.

Learn more at www.safeonsocial.com.

Learn more about Kirra Pendergast - www.kirrapendergast.com

Media, Partnership & Investor Inquiries

Will Anstee

Safe on Social Inc.

[email protected]

www.safeonsocial.com

SOURCE: Safe on Social

This story was originally published October 15, 2026 at 11:51 AM with the headline "America is Checking Who is Old Enough; Nobody is Checking Who is Young Enough ."