Jon SeagerMar 4

Over the past couple of days, there has been a lot of commentary about #Ubuntu and how it'll respond to California's new Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043), which will require operating systems to collect age information at account setup and expose an age “signal” to eligible applications from 2027.

Canonical is aware of the legislation and is reviewing it internally with legal counsel, but there are currently no concrete plans on how, or even whether, Ubuntu will change in response.

The recent mailing list post is an informal conversation among Ubuntu community members, not an announcement. While the discussion contains potentially useful ideas, none have been adopted or committed to by Canonical.

When we have a clear plan, we will publish it through our usual channels.

Show threadPaul LMar 4

@jnsgruk
Thanks for this, the mailing list discussion was thought provoking.

Particularly the side effect for laptops and other portable computers, since apps and OSes may need to determine whether they are currently operating in a jurisdiction that has (which) age-related laws in effect, this has potential for disclosing location data via the age brackets that are being returned.

So no idea how any of this even works for a laptop being used in the back of a car / taxi or on a train either.

Show threadCliff'sEsportCorner
@prlzx @jnsgruk What about servers??? For companies how do you even define age? And what about when employees change or ownership of company changes.
Mar 4 at 12:42pmWeb
Show threadPaul LMar 4

@CliffsEsport
OS/distro organisations will need to determine that and other questions on scope/applicability.

Servers: (say) exclude system accounts and user accounts only associated with services (as opposed to users with interactive or network login enabled).

Organisations: consideration whether to use existing data from an directory system (e.g. AD).

I will wait for Canonical's take, was only mentioning how leaks of non-age info could arise from differences in age brackets by location.

Show threadCliff'sEsportCornerMar 4
@prlzx I was more expressing doubt that the statue addressed those aspects clearly at all. More of a case law issue I suspect if this survives legal challenges.
Show threadPaul LMar 4

@CliffsEsport
For organisations with LTS releases like Canonical, the timing creates additional work while in FeatureFreeze for 26.04.

And will be evaluating whether 6 or more LTS will be in scope for backporting and then supporting it (18.04, 20.04, 22.04, 24.04, 26.04, 28.04) (and some non-LTS).

Then an expanding/ongoing role for tracking how and when laws for each state/province of multiple countries come into effect if they even want to continue to offer a product in these markets.