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A 16-year-old in Houston tries to open a new account on a video app and hits a screen she has not seen before: upload a photo of a government ID, or let the app estimate her age from a selfie. Her cousin in another state signs up with just a birthday. The difference is not the app being moody. It is a patchwork of new state laws about who has to prove their age online, plus a Supreme Court decision from 2025 that changed how courts look at those laws. This article explains the pieces without pretending the map is finished.
The old rule: under 13 is the only hard federal line
For most of the internet's life, the only federal age rule for ordinary apps was COPPA, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. The Federal Trade Commission enforces it. COPPA applies to services that collect personal information from children under 13, and the FTC's own guidance says a general-audience app may use a 'neutral age screen,' meaning a birthday field that does not nudge you toward saying you are 13 or older. That is the birthday box most teenagers know.
COPPA says nothing about 14-, 15-, or 17-year-olds. It never required an ID. Our article on COPPA and under-13 accounts covers that law in detail. The point here is that above 13, until recently, federal law left the door open.
What the Supreme Court said in 1997 and again in 2025
In Reno v. ACLU (1997), the Court struck down parts of a federal law that made it a crime to send 'indecent' material to minors online. The reasoning was that the law also blocked adults from speech the First Amendment protects, and the government had not shown a narrower way to shield children. For almost thirty years that case made courts suspicious of any online age gate.
Then came Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (2025). Texas passed a law requiring websites where more than one-third of the content is sexual material harmful to minors to verify every visitor's age. The Court upheld it, 6 to 3, using a middle-level test called intermediate scrutiny. The majority said adults have no First Amendment right to avoid showing their age, and compared the requirement to showing an ID to buy alcohol. Paxton was about pornography sites, not social media. But states passing social media age laws now point to it, and the people challenging those laws point to Reno. Several state social media laws have been paused by lower courts while that fight continues. Which laws are in force changes month to month, so treat any list you find online as possibly out of date.
Before you upload an ID or a face scan
An age check can be done in several ways, and they are not equal. A birthday field costs you nothing. A photo of your driver's license or passport is a copy of a government document sitting on a company's server. A face scan is biometric data, a measurement of your body that cannot be changed if it leaks. Before you upload either, look for two things in the app's privacy policy: whether the check is done by a separate verification company, and how long the image is kept. Many services say they delete it right after the check. If the policy does not say, that is your answer.
If you are under 18, talk to a parent before uploading an ID, and never use a parent's ID to pass as an adult; that is the kind of thing that turns a privacy question into a fraud problem. To find out what your own state requires, search your state legislature's website for 'social media' and 'minor', or check the state attorney general's consumer page, which usually explains any law the state is enforcing. If a site demands an ID for something COPPA and your state do not require, you can decline and use a different service.
À retenir
- COPPA, enforced by the FTC, covers children under 13 and allows a neutral birthday screen; it has never required an ID above that age.
- Reno v. ACLU (1997) struck down a federal online indecency law because it also blocked adults from protected speech.
- Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (2025) upheld Texas's age verification law for pornography sites under intermediate scrutiny; social media laws are still being fought over.
- A birthday field, an ID photo, and a face scan carry very different risks. Check who does the check and how long the image is kept before uploading.
Sources
Cet article donne des informations éducatives générales, pas un conseil juridique personnalisé. KidsKnowRights n'est pas un cabinet d'avocats, et lire cet article ne crée pas de relation avocat-client. Les lois varient selon l'État, l'âge et les circonstances, et elles changent avec le temps. Pour un conseil sur une situation réelle, adresse-toi à un avocat agréé ou à un organisme d'aide juridique.