When Equal Ground talks to families across Florida about the issues that matter to them, we hear a lot about economic security, healthcare access, and education. Lately, we’re also hearing something new: parents want help keeping their kids safe online, but they need solutions that actually work for their lives.
This isn’t a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. Parents across every demographic are asking for the same thing: simple tools that help them guide their children’s digital lives without requiring them to become technology experts or compromise their kids’ privacy.
Congress is considering two different approaches to this challenge, and the difference between them matters enormously for the communities we work to engage in the electoral process.
The App Store Accountability Act does what parents are asking for. Before a child downloads any app, their parent gets one notification through the phone. The parent then approves or denies the download, and that’s it. Age verification happens once when the phone is set up, and from there, parents just get alerts about download requests. It’s simple and protects privacy by keeping age data in one place instead of exposing it to dozens of companies.
Compare that to a new piece of legislation called the “Parents Over Platforms Act.” This bill sounds good until you read what it actually does. It requires platforms to determine whether their users are minors. One way they can do this is by receiving an “age signal” via the app store. But, the bill only requires users to state their age at the app store, not to verify it. That means a 13-year-old can simply claim to be 18 when setting up their phone, and unless the app store voluntarily chooses to check, that lie becomes the “age signal” passed along to every app, rendering the whole process useless. Every parent knows how easily kids will be able to bypass this system.
The alternative way apps can verify a user’s age is by way of invasive biometric scans or ID checks. Black and brown communities are already dealing with over-surveillance and data collection that gets weaponized against us. The last thing we need right now is legislation that requires children to hand over personal information to dozens of different companies, each with their own security practices, and each a potential target for breaches or misuse. Optioning between just stating an age and collecting highly invasive personal information on minors is not a solution.
Florida’s congressional delegation should support the App Store Accountability Act because it enables parents to make the important decisions about what is right for their kids. Complicated or vulnerable systems, as found in the poorly named “Parents Over Platforms Act,” serve nobody.
We need legislation that empowers families by removing barriers, not adding them. The App Store Accountability Act does that, The Parents Over Platforms Act doesn’t. Families simply want tools that are easy to use that won’t put their sensitive data at risk. It’s time we take action to pass the legislation that works.
Jasmine Burney-Clark, is a civic engagement professional who has dedicated her personal and professional career to social and electoral justice across the state of Florida. She’s the Founder of Equal Ground Education Fund and Action Fund, Florida’s preeminent Black-led community-centered civic engagement organization prioritizing voter registration, education and turnout.
Her work in Florida and Equal Ground has been featured on CNN and MSNBC and in the Washington Post and New York Times. She is highly sought after to empower and engage Black folks in social and civic engagement campaigns that directly impact their lives and the generations that follow.
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This article appears in Feb. 26 – Mar. 04, 2026.