Grindr supports Republican-backed age-verification bill

On Tuesday, Grindr’s head of global government affairs, Joe Hack, posted on his blog that the app supports the Republican-backed App Store Accountability Act.

The law is part of a series of online safety bills that U.S. lawmakers considered this week, as WIRED reports, including the controversial Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which critics say would curb free speech by censoring LGBTQ content online.

The App Store Accountability Act would require age verification at the App Store level. App Store providers (like Apple and Google) should verify an individual’s “age rating” using personal data (such as an email address or social security number). If a user is a minor, they will need to obtain parental consent before downloading an app or making an in-app purchase.

The legislation was introduced in May in the House by Michigan Rep. John James and in the Senate by Utah Sen. Mike Lee, both Republicans. This year, Lee also reintroduced the Interstate Oscenity Definition Act, which would seek to redefine what constitutes “obscene” material (which is not protected by the First Amendment). Experts told Mashable that the bill would essentially ban pornography.

But when it comes to the App Store Accountability Act, Grindr’s Hack wrote, “We support Rep. John James’ App Store Accountability Act because it strengthens” the work the app does to keep minors away, including age restrictions, device-level bans, human moderation, AI tools, and partnerships with child safety organizations.

“The bill creates a single, secure age verification process at the App Store level and allows developers to receive a verified age signal. This approach, supported by nearly 90% of parents, is safer and more consistent than requiring users to verify their age separately across many apps,” Hack continued.

“In contrast, the UK and EU are moving toward fragmented rules that force adults to share sensitive personal information with thousands of apps, creating unnecessary privacy and security risks,” Hack wrote. This refers to the UK’s Online Safety Act, which requires visitors to sites with “adult” content to submit personal information such as ID or a facial scan.

Recently, free speech and child safety experts told Mashable that device-level filtering is the preferred method of age verification because it doesn’t require these data checks every time someone wants to access certain websites. One example is California’s AB 1043, which requires operating systems to ask for an age or date of birth during setup and then create a signal of a user’s age range to send to applications (but not websites). AB 1043 takes effect in 2027.