Age verification in Chronic Insights and US state laws

New laws are come into effect regarding all mobile apps and mobile app stores with users in certain US states, designed to control children’s access to apps and in-app purchases. I shall attempt to summarise why this is happening, and what this means for users of my privacy-focused symptom diary app Chronic Insights.

The first new law comes into effect on 1st January 2026 in Texas, as detailed in Texas Bill SB2420, with further bills due to come into effect later in 2026: Utah Bill SB0142 (7 May 2026) and Louisiana HB570 (1 July 2026).

Unfortunately, these new bills have some very disappointing ramifications for user’s privacy, as it requires all apps sold in mobile app stores to a) verify if their users are located within any of these jurisdictions, and b) for those users, to use age information provided by app stores to determine if they are aged 18 or over, or have consent from their legal parent or guardian to download and use each individual app. Users in these states who are under 18 and do not have consent from their legal parent or guardian to use an app can no longer use it, and app developers and app stores are required to take steps to verify this.

Rather than using common sense to limit these laws to sensible categories which arguably should be subject to age restrictions (such as social media apps, gambling apps or apps with adult content), these rules appy to all apps, regardless of their content, purpose or age rating. So for example, children in these US states would have to seek permission from their parent or guardian to download and use a symptom diary app, a calculator app, a weather app, a fart app, a torch app or any other kind of app. To me, this seems bizarre, and not well thought through.

Nevertheless I am now being forced to decide between two courses of action: to comply with these laws by introducing measures to determine a user’s location and requesting age information about users in the affected states; or to withdraw my app entirely from the US market. As I sincerely wish to continue to support people in the US who are chronically ill and use my app to help manage their symptoms, I have decided reluctantly to do the former.

What this means for you: app version 5.18.4 will introduce mechanisms to comply with these laws, while attempting to minimise the impact on your privacy as much as I can. US users may therefore see a prompt requesting you for permission to use your location to determine if you are currently in one of the affected states. If you are determined to be in one of these states, you may then see a prompt from Apple (for iPhone users) or Google (for Android users) asking you to share your approximate age group with the Chronic Insights app, and if you are under 18 asking you to request permission from your parent or guarding to continue using the app. None of this information will be shared or transmitted off your device, and will only be used locally within the app on your phone for the purposes of complying with these state laws.

As I know that many of you choose to use Chronic Insights in part because you want a private symptom diary app which doesn’t collect or share data about you (one of my core principles) I know that this change may be as disappointing as it is to me. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions at all about this, please don’t hesitate to reach out: james@chronicinsights.com