alt Hacker NewsAnnoyingly? Ironically? The best technical implementation of this law would be to make it possible for the "device owner" to tell the OS to set a flag that the user was under age. Never send the age, never send anything else. Just have a global variable indicating that the user is under age that can be accessed by the browser.
Now what would happen after that?
First oses would have to implement the above in a way that could not be bypassed, pretty much impossible if the child has access to the device.
Then you would need to require that websites honor that token or any similar token no matter how it was implemented ... https MITM etc. good luck with that.
Finally once all the implementation and enforcement hurdles are complete every website out there would immediately know that the user browsing was a child and all the trackers and ad networks on the web would immediately start targeting those users because children are marks.
Now you need even more laws and regulations to protect the children from being targeted by advertising companies, and good luck with enforcing that.
This is what I was hoping for when I read one of the comments. It's okay if the child can technically bypass the flag. That's what the parent is for, to regularly monitor their child's device. But I am a parent with a technical background so this works for me, selfishly, I have no idea how it will work for everyone else.
But once again, I'd like to bring up my preferred solution for this problem. Ban "smartphone" (precise meaning TBD) for minors in public spaces. My belief is that it will disrupt the dopamine hits enough that it doesn't become addicting and kids don't rely on it completely to function socially. And just having it in legislature will serve as a starting point for parents to discuss the topic more openly, which will help with the network effects. Parents don't have second thoughts on why cigarettes or drugs or alcohol is bad for children, they just are, and whole groups of parents can collectively agree that their children and friends of their children should not be using them. I hope to see the same for "smartphones".