Illinois Law Quietly Requires Linux Distros to Add Age Verification by 2028
Illinois Just Passed a Law That Puts Linux on the Hook for Age Verification
Illinois' new Children's Social Media Safety Act (HB5511) targets TikTok and Instagram, but buried in the bill is a mandate for operating system providers—including open-source projects—to build an age-declaration step and hand age-bracket signals to apps via an encrypted API by January 1, 2028. Unlike Colorado and California, Illinois granted no open-source exemption. With penalties up to $7,500 per child, enforcement falls to the state AG, leaving hobbyist distros likely out of reach but putting commercial vendors like Google, Microsoft, and Apple on the hook.
Nothing in the bill requires a passport scan or a face scan at setup. It’s self-declared, the same way most apps ask your birthday today, just centralized once at the OS level instead of repeated app by app.