Minnesota Avoided an ID Mandate. Why Must Platforms Still Classify Their Users by Age?

Should government require a social-media company to sort its users into age categories before parents have made that choice for their own children?

Minnesota's HF4138 says the company must estimate.

The Stop Harms from Addictive Social Media Act requires large platforms to estimate whether a user is at least 16. If the platform cannot reach reasonable certainty, it must treat the account as belonging to a child.

Child accounts require verifiable parental consent. They receive maximum privacy settings by default, no targeted advertising, fewer addictive design features, and tools allowing parents to monitor use and set time limits.

The law says platforms are not required to collect or retain identity documents. Age estimation uses information already available in the ordinary course of operating the platform.

That keeps an identity-document mandate out of the law. It does not make the age-estimation mandate acceptable. The platform must still evaluate every user and decide whether the person is probably an adult or a child.

The law creates a private right of action with statutory damages up to $10,000, subject to a reasonable-efforts safe harbor. That will make the details of compliance and litigation significant when the Act takes effect July 1, 2027.

Minnesota avoided an identity-document mandate. It still made age classification the price of operating a large social-media platform.

Parents already have the authority and tools to decide how their children use social media. Protecting children does not require government to turn social-media accounts, including adult accounts, into an age-estimation exercise.

For more information on age verification, digital identity, and parent-led online safety, visit Protecting Kids Online, a national, parent-led coalition founded by Julie Barrett.

This is our read of the law. We encourage you to read it yourself and reach your own conclusions.