I 

118TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION H. R. 10364 

To safeguard children from harmful app services accessible through app 

stores across the United States, to provide parents with parental controls, 

to provide parents clear and accurate information about apps and their 

services to ensure proper parental consent is achieved, and for other 

purposes. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

DECEMBER 11, 2024 

Mr. JAMES introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee 

on Energy and Commerce 

A BILL 

To safeguard children from harmful app services accessible 

through app stores across the United States, to provide 

parents with parental controls, to provide parents clear 

and accurate information about apps and their services 

to ensure proper parental consent is achieved, and for 

other purposes. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

4 (a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the 

5 ‘‘App Store Accountability Act’’. 


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1 (b) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents for 

2 this Act is as follows: 

Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents. 

Sec. 2. Findings; sense of Congress. 

Sec. 3. Definitions. 

Sec. 4. App store obligations. 

Sec. 5. Developer obligations. 

Sec. 6. App age ratings transparency advisory committee. 

Sec. 7. Compliance. 

Sec. 8. Enforcement. 

Sec. 9. Preemption. 

Sec. 10. Severability. 

Sec. 11. Effective date. 

3 SEC. 2. FINDINGS; SENSE OF CONGRESS. 

4 (a) FINDINGS.—Congress finds the following: 

5 (1) Minors do not have the same capacity to 

6 consent to a contract as adults. 

7 (2) Many apps allow in-app purchases without 

8 confirming that an adult has consented to such a 

9 purchase. 

10 (3) Many apps contain content or features inap11 propriate for minors, such as obscene or explicitly 

12 sexual content, addictive features, and adult themes. 

13 (4) 95 percent of teenagers in the United 

14 States own a smart phone and have access to apps 

15 through an app store. 

16 (5) The leading app stores provide some ability 

17 for parents to oversee a minor’s use of apps, but 

18 those abilities are incomplete to appropriately pro19 tect minors. 


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1 (6) The leading app stores provide some age 

2 rating for apps, but those ratings can be inaccurate, 

3 vague, deceptive, or otherwise unhelpful to parents. 

4 (7) Some developers claim to limit or prohibit 

5 the use of their app by minors but too often fail to 

6 enforce those policies. 

7 (8) Several online services provide the capability 

8 to verify the age of a user. 

9 (9) App stores have the ability to, but too often 

10 do not, verify the age of a user. 

11 (10) Requiring age verification by the largest 

12 app store providers may empower parental oversight 

13 of minors’ use of apps while minimizing the burden 

14 on developers, entrepreneurs, parents, and other 

15 adult users of apps. 

16 (11) Two app stores, the Apple App Store and 

17 the Google Play Store, almost entirely control the 

18 app distribution market in the United States, and 

19 these 2 stores provide methods for parents to over20 see a minor’s use of apps, but those methods are in21 complete to appropriately protect minors. 

22 (b) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of Con23 gress that— 

24 (1) requiring age verification by the largest app 

25 store providers may empower parental oversight of 


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1 minors’ use of apps while minimizing the burden on 

2 developers, entrepreneurs, parents, and other adult 

3 users of apps; 

4 (2) mobile device usage depends on access to 

5 certain apps; 

6 (3) mobile devices have evolved to command a 

7 uniquely pervasive presence as a medium of expres8 sion, are impossible to completely avoid, and are 

9 foundational to both public and private life; and 

10 (4) disclosure of offensive content within 

11 apps— 

12 (A) empowers parents to better understand 

13 what apps their children are using and exercise 

14 their parental oversight; and 

15 (B) ensures that minors are better able to 

16 avoid content they are instructed against ac17 cessing or would otherwise desire to personally 

18 avoid. 

19 SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS. 

20 In this Act: 

21 (1) AGE CATEGORY.—The term ‘‘age category’’ 

22 means the category of an individual based on their 

23 age, including the following categories: 

24 (A) ADULT.—An ‘‘adult’’ is such an indi25 vidual who has attained 18 years of age. 


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1 (B) TEENAGER.—A ‘‘teenager’’ is such an 

2 individual who has attained 16 years of age but 

3 has not attained 18 years of age. 

4 (C) CHILD.—A ‘‘child’’ is such an indi5 vidual who has attained 13 years of age but has 

6 not attained 16 years of age. 

7 (D) YOUNG CHILD.—A ‘‘young child’’ is 

8 such an individual who has not attained 13 

9 years of age. 

10 (2) AGE RATING.—The term ‘‘age rating’’ 

11 means a public display that indicates the appro12 priateness of an app for different age categories. 

13 (3) APP.—The term ‘‘app’’ means a software 

14 application or electronic service that may be run or 

15 directed by a user on a computer, mobile device, or 

16 any other general purpose computing device. 

17 (4) APP STORE.—The term ‘‘app store’’ means 

18 a publicly available website, software application, or 

19 other electronic service that distributes and facili20 tates the download of an app from a third-party de21 veloper by a user of a computer, mobile device, or 

22 any other general purpose computing device. 

23 (5) COMMISSION.—The term ‘‘Commission’’ 

24 means the Federal Trade Commission. 


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1 (6) COVERED APP STORE PROVIDER.—The 

2 term ‘‘covered app store provider’’ means any person 

3 that owns or controls an app store available in the 

4 United States and for which users in the United 

5 States exceed 5,000,000. 

6 (7) DEVELOPER.—The term ‘‘developer’’ means 

7 any person that owns or controls an app on the app 

8 store of a covered app store provider and available 

9 in the United States. 

10 (8) KNOW.—The term ‘‘know’’ means to have 

11 actual knowledge or knowledge fairly inferred based 

12 on objective circumstances. 

13 (9) MINOR.—The term ‘‘minor’’ means an indi14 vidual who has not attained 18 years of age. 

15 (10) MOBILE DEVICE.—The term ‘‘mobile de16 vice’’ means a tablet or smart phone that is capable 

17 of running a mobile operating system. 

18 (11) MOBILE OPERATING SYSTEM.—The term 

19 ‘‘mobile operating system’’ means a set of software 

20 that manages mobile device hardware resources and 

21 provides common services for mobile device pro22 grams. 

23 (12) PARENT.—The term ‘‘parent’’, with re24 spect to a minor, means an adult with the legal right 


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1 to make decisions on behalf of the minor, includ2 ing— 

3 (A) a natural parent; 

4 (B) an adoptive parent; 

5 (C) a legal guardian; or 

6 (D) an individual with legal custody over 

7 the minor. 

8 (13) SIGNAL.—The term ‘‘signal’’ means age 

9 bracketed data sent by a real-time secure application 

10 programming interface or operating system that is 

11 likely to be accessed by minors. 

12 (14) VERIFIABLE PARENTAL CONSENT.—The 

13 term ‘‘verifiable parental consent’’ means authoriza14 tion that is provided— 

15 (A) by a parent who a covered app store 

16 provider has verified is an adult; 

17 (B) in response to a disclosure from a cov18 ered app store provider that identifies what is 

19 specifically being consented to, including the 

20 age rating for the app or in-app purchase at 

21 issue; and 

22 (C) in response to a clear choice to consent 

23 or to decline to consent to the request from the 

24 covered app store provider. 


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1 SEC. 4. APP STORE OBLIGATIONS. 

2 (a) IN GENERAL.—Each covered app store provider 

3 shall do the following: 

4 (1) AGE VERIFICATION.—Determine the age 

5 category for each individual in the United States 

6 that uses the app store of such provider and verify 

7 such individual’s age using commercially reasonable 

8 methods. 

9 (2) PARENTAL OVERSIGHT OF APP STORE

10 USAGE.—Obtain verifiable parental consent prior to 

11 allowing a minor to use the app store of such pro12 vider, including by providing a mechanism for a par13 ent to block a minor from downloading any app that 

14 is not suitable for the age category of the minor. 

15 (3) PARENTAL OVERSIGHT OF APP

16 DOWNLOADS.—Obtain verifiable parental consent, on 

17 a download-by-download basis, prior to allowing a 

18 minor to download an app from the app store of 

19 such provider, including by providing an easily ac20 cessible mechanism for a parent to consent to the 

21 download of an app. 

22 (4) PARENTAL OVERSIGHT OF APP PUR23 CHASES.—Obtain verifiable parental consent, on a 

24 purchase-by-purchase basis, prior to allowing a 

25 minor to purchase any app through the app store of 


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1 such provider, and such consent shall be valid for up 

2 to 7 days. 

3 (5) PARENTAL OVERSIGHT OF IN-APP PUR4 CHASES.—Obtain verifiable parental consent, on a 

5 purchase-by-purchase basis, prior to allowing a 

6 minor to make an in-app purchase through the app 

7 store of such provider. 

8 (6) PARENTAL OVERSIGHT OF APP USAGE.— 

9 With respect to any covered app store provider that 

10 owns or controls a mobile device’s mobile operating 

11 system, to the extent practicable, provide to parents 

12 a clear and easy mechanism to set— 

13 (A) filters that prevent a minor from ac14 cessing any adult website on the web browser of 

15 the mobile device; and 

16 (B) usage limits, including daily limits and 

17 limitations during school and evening hours. 

18 (7) APP AGE RATING DISPLAY.—To the extent 

19 the covered app store provider displays age ratings 

20 or descriptions of content, clearly and prominently 

21 display the age rating or description of content for 

22 each app available in the app store of the provider, 

23 including information regarding the minimum age 

24 category suitable for usage of an app. 


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1 (8) AGE CATEGORY SIGNAL TO DEVELOPERS.— 

2 Provide to developers the ability to determine, in 

3 real time, the age category of any user and, with re4 spect to any user that is a minor, whether the cov5 ered app store provider has obtained verifiable pa6 rental consent in accordance with this section. 

7 (b) RULES OF CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this sec8 tion shall be construed— 

9 (1) to prevent a covered app store provider 

10 from taking reasonable measures to block, detect, or 

11 prevent the distribution of unlawful, obscene, or 

12 other harmful material to minors, to block or filter 

13 spam, to prevent criminal activity, or to protect the 

14 security of an app store or app; 

15 (2) to require a covered app store provider to 

16 disclose to a developer any information about a user 

17 other than such user’s age category and, with re18 spect to any user that is a minor, whether the cov19 ered app store provider has obtained verifiable pa20 rental consent in accordance with this section; 

21 (3) to allow a covered app store provider to use 

22 any measures required by this section in a way that 

23 is arbitrary, capricious, anti-competitive, or unlaw24 ful; or 


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1 (4) to affect or restrict the expression of polit2 ical, religious, or other viewpoints. 

3 SEC. 5. DEVELOPER OBLIGATIONS. 

4 (a) APP AGE RATING.—To the extent that a devel5 oper provides age ratings or descriptions of content to 

6 users, the developer shall— 

7 (1) clearly provide the description of content 

8 and clearly identify the age category eligible for 

9 usage of an app consistent with the rating system 

10 developed in accordance with the best practices es11 tablished by the Advisory Committee under section 

12 6; and 

13 (2) provide such information to each app store 

14 available in the United States. 

15 (b) PARENTAL OVERSIGHT OF APP USAGE.—To the 

16 extent technically feasible, each developer shall use the ap17 plication programming interface of a covered app store 

18 provider to verify— 

19 (1) the age category of its users; and 

20 (2) in the case of a minor, whether verifiable 

21 parental consent has been obtained before allowing 

22 the use of the app or in-app purchases. 

23 (c) TIME RESTRICTIONS.—Each developer shall pro24 vide readily available features for a parent to implement 

25 time restrictions with respect to the app of such developer, 


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1 including the ability to view metrics reflecting the amount 

2 of time that a minor is using the app and set daily time 

3 limits on a minor’s use of such app. 

4 (d) USE OF APP STORE PROVIDER SIGNAL.—Each 

5 developer shall use a covered app store provider’s signal 

6 to determine the age category of a user. 

7 SEC. 6. APP AGE RATINGS TRANSPARENCY ADVISORY COM8 MITTEE. 

9 (a) ESTABLISHMENT.—Not later than 60 days after 

10 the date of enactment of this Act, the Commission shall 

11 establish and convene the App Age Ratings Transparency 

12 Advisory Committee (in this section referred to as the 

13 ‘‘Advisory Committee’’) to recommend best practices re14 garding the age rating of apps offered on the app store 

15 of any covered app store provider for different age cat16 egories. 

17 (b) PARTICIPATION.—The Advisory Committee shall 

18 include members from— 

19 (1) content creators; 

20 (2) developers; 

21 (3) public interest groups focused on child wel22 fare; 

23 (4) parents; and 

24 (5) any other representatives deemed appro25 priate by the Commission. 


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1 (c) REPORT.—Not later than 1 year after the date 

2 on which the Advisory Committee is established, and every 

3 3 years thereafter until the date described in subsection 

4 (d), the Advisory Committee shall submit to Congress, and 

5 publish in a publicly available manner, a report that in6 cludes recommendations for best practices regarding the 

7 age rating of apps offered on the app store of any covered 

8 app store provider. 

9 (d) TERMINATION.—The Advisory Committee shall 

10 terminate on the date that is 15 years after the date on 

11 which the Advisory Committee is established, unless the 

12 Commission determines that the continued involvement 

13 and guidance of the Advisory Committee is in the public 

14 interest. 

15 (e) NON-APPLICABILITY OF FACA.—Chapter 10 of 

16 title 5, United States Code, other than section 1009 of 

17 such Chapter, shall not apply to the Advisory Committee 

18 established under this section. 

19 SEC. 7. COMPLIANCE. 

20 Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment 

21 of this Act, the Commission shall issue guidance to assist 

22 covered app store providers and developers in complying 

23 with the requirements of this Act. 


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1 SEC. 8. ENFORCEMENT. 

2 (a) UNFAIR OR DECEPTIVE ACTS OR PRACTICE.—A 

3 violation of this Act or a regulation promulgated there4 under shall be treated as a violation of a rule defining 

5 an unfair or deceptive act or practice under section 

6 18(a)(1)(B) of the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 

7 U.S.C. 57a(a)(1)(B)). 

8 (b) POWERS OF THE COMMISSION.— 

9 (1) IN GENERAL.—Subject to subsection (c), 

10 the Commission shall enforce this Act in the same 

11 manner, by the same means, and with the same ju12 risdiction, powers, and duties as though all applica13 ble terms and provisions of the Federal Trade Com14 mission Act (15 U.S.C. 41 et seq.) were incor15 porated into and made a part of this Act. 

16 (2) PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES.—Any person 

17 who violates this Act or a regulation promulgated 

18 thereunder shall be subject to the penalties and enti19 tled to the privileges and immunities provided in the 

20 Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 41 et 

21 seq.). 

22 (3) AUTHORITY PRESERVED.—Nothing in this 

23 Act shall be construed to limit the authority of the 

24 Commission under any other provision of law. 

25 (c) ADDITIONAL PENALTIES AND AUTHORITY.—In 

26 addition to the authority and penalties provided in the 


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1 Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 41 et seq.), 

2 the following authority and penalties shall apply with re3 spect to a violation of this Act: 

4 (1) SPECIFIC CIVIL PENALTIES.— 

5 (A) KNOWING MISSTATEMENT OF CON6 TENT.—Any covered app store provider or de7 veloper who knowingly and willfully misstates 

8 the content of an app as required under section 

9 4(a)(7) or 5(a) shall be subject to a civil pen10 alty of $500 for each user as determined by the 

11 Commission. 

12 (B) NEGLIGENT MISSTATEMENTS OF CON13 TENT.—Any covered app store provider or de14 veloper who negligently misstates the content of 

15 an app as required under section 4(a)(7) or 

16 5(a) shall be subject to a civil penalty of $250 

17 for each user as determined by the Commission. 

18 (C) FAILURE TO VERIFY PARENTAL CON19 SENT.—Any covered app store provider or de20 veloper who knowingly or negligently fails to 

21 comply with parental consent verification as re22 quired under this Act shall be subject to a civil 

23 penalty of $1,000 for each user as determined 

24 by the Commission. 


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1 (D) MAXIMUM PENALTY.—The amount of 

2 any civil penalty under this paragraph shall not 

3 exceed a total of $4,000,000,000 per violation. 

4 (E) CONSTRUING SPECIFIC CIVIL PEN5 ALTIES.—Each instance of misstatement of 

6 content or failure to obtain verifiable parental 

7 consent shall be defined by the number of indi8 vidual downloads or purchases of an app that 

9 occurred in noncompliance with this Act. 

10 (2) GENERAL CIVIL PENALTIES.— 

11 (A) IN GENERAL.—Any covered app store 

12 provider or developer who violates any provision 

13 of this Act or any regulation promulgated under 

14 this Act, other than violations described in 

15 paragraph (1), shall be subject to a civil penalty 

16 for each violation. 

17 (B) MAXIMUM PENALTY.—The amount of 

18 any civil penalty under this paragraph shall not 

19 exceed $2,000,000,000 per violation. 

20 (3) INJUNCTIVE RELIEF.— 

21 (A) IN GENERAL.—The Commission may 

22 seek a temporary restraining order, preliminary 

23 injunction, or permanent injunction to prevent 

24 any violation of this Act or any regulation pro25 mulgated thereunder. 


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1 (B) ADDITIONAL RELIEF.—The Commis2 sion may seek other forms of equitable relief, 

3 including rescission or reformation of contracts, 

4 restitution, the refund of money, and the return 

5 of property. 

6 (4) CONSUMER REDRESS.—The Commission 

7 may seek monetary redress for consumers affected 

8 by a violation of this Act or any regulation promul9 gated thereunder, including through a refund, reim10 bursement, or other form of compensation. 

11 (5) CEASE AND DESIST ORDERS.— 

12 (A) IN GENERAL.—The Commission may 

13 issue a cease and desist order to prohibit fur14 ther violation of this Act or any regulation pro15 mulgated thereunder. 

16 (B) COMPLIANCE REQUIREMENTS.—Cease 

17 and desist orders issued under this paragraph 

18 may include specific compliance requirements 

19 such as changes to business practices, disclo20 sures, and record-keeping. 

21 (6) MAXIMUM PENALTIES.—The maximum pen22 alty described in paragraph (1)(D) or paragraph 

23 (2)(B) shall be doubled upon a finding by the Com24 mission that the covered app store provider or devel25 oper in violation of this Act or a regulation promulVerDate Sep 11 2014 17:54 Jan 13, 2025 Jkt 059200 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H10364.IH H10364

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1 gated thereunder has repeatedly or flagrantly vio2 lated this Act or a regulation promulgated there3 under. 

4 SEC. 9. PREEMPTION. 

5 Any law, regulation, or other requirement of a State 

6 or political subdivision of a State with respect to imposing 

7 substantially similar or the same obligations on app store 

8 providers and developers as laid out in this Act is hereby 

9 preempted by this Act. 

10 SEC. 10. SEVERABILITY. 

11 If any provision of this Act, or the application thereof 

12 to any person or circumstance, is held invalid, the remain13 der of this Act, and the application of such provision to 

14 other persons not similarly situated or to other cir15 cumstances, shall not be affected by the invalidation. 

16 SEC. 11. EFFECTIVE DATE. 

17 Except as otherwise provided in this Act, this Act 

18 shall take effect on the date that is 1 year after the date 

19 of enactment of this Act. 

Æ 


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