California's AB 1043 and similar state laws require operating system providers to collect age data from users and expose it to applications via API. No Linux distribution has shipped a compliance mechanism yet, but several proposals are under active discussion. This section documents what's being proposed so we can build removal tools the moment implementations ship.
At the OS level, AB 1043 creates three obligations for operating system distributors:
An accessible interface during account setup that prompts for the user's age or date of birth. The statute requires this to be presented during the initial setup flow — not buried in settings.
A programmatic interface that reports the user's age bracket to applications at runtime. Applications are expected to query this API and adjust their behavior accordingly — restricting content, disabling features, or refusing to launch for underage users.
The system must expose the minimum information necessary. Rather than providing an exact age or date of birth, the API should report only an age bracket.
The statute defines four age categories that the OS must distinguish:
Under 13
13 – 15
16 – 17
18+
In the proposed D-Bus interface, bracket 0 means "unknown" — the user has not
provided age information. This is the value Ageless Linux intends to return for all queries.
Four implementation paths are under discussion across the Linux ecosystem. Each is documented in detail:
The org.freedesktop.AgeVerification1 proposal — a standalone D-Bus service
with SetAge, SetDateOfBirth, and GetAgeBracket
methods. Proposed by Aaron Rainbolt (Kicksecure/Whonix) on March 1, 2026. Cross-posted
to Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and freedesktop.org mailing lists.
The GNOME/systemd user account service. A natural place for age data, but described as "effectively obsolete" by KDE developer David Edmundson. Not formally proposed.
David Edmundson suggested routing age data through xdg-desktop-portal, which already handles permission-gated data access for sandboxed apps (Flatpak, Snap). Rainbolt rejected this approach on data minimization grounds.
Where every major distribution stands: Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, Pop!_OS, openSUSE, Red Hat, Valve, Kicksecure/Whonix, MidnightBSD, and others. Updated as positions change.