Rindala Alajaji, writing for the EFF:

If you’ve been following the wave of age-gating laws sweeping across the country and the globe, you’ve probably noticed that lawmakers, tech companies, and advocates all seem to be using different terms for what sounds like the same thing. Age verification, age assurance, age estimation, age gating—they get thrown around interchangeably, but they technically mean different things. And those differences matter a lot when we’re talking about your rights, your privacy, your data, and who gets to access information online.

So let’s clear up the confusion. Here’s your guide to the terminology that’s shaping these laws, and why you should care about the distinctions.

I headlined my aforelinked piece on Apple’s API support for these laws as “Age Verification” rather than “Age Assurance.” That choice was deliberate:

Politicians and tech companies love using these terms interchangeably because it obscures what they’re actually proposing. A law that requires “age assurance” sounds reasonable and moderate. But if that law defines age assurance as requiring government ID verification, it’s not moderate at all—it’s mass surveillance.

Apple and Google are required under Texas SB2420 to “verify” a user’s age—children and adults alike:

Sec. 121.021. DUTY TO VERIFY AGE OF USER; AGE CATEGORIES.

(a) When an individual in this state creates an account with an app store, the owner of the app store shall use a commercially reasonable method of verification to verify the individual’s age category under Subsection (b).

And:

Sec. 121.022. PARENTAL CONSENT REQUIRED.

(a) If the owner of the app store determines under Section 121.021 that an individual is a minor who belongs to an age category that is not “adult,” the owner shall require that the minor’s account be affiliated with a parent account belonging to the minor’s parent or guardian.

Utah’s SB0142 and Louisiana’s HB570 each have similar language.

Language matters because it shapes how we think about these systems. “Assurance” sounds gentle. “Verification” sounds official. “Estimation” sounds technical and impersonal, and also admits its inherent imprecision. But they all involve collecting your data and create a metaphysical age gate to the internet. The terminology is deliberately confusing, but the stakes are clear: it’s your privacy, your data, and your ability to access the internet without constant identity checks. Don’t let fuzzy language disguise what these systems really do.

Naturally, Google uses “verify” and “verification,” while Apple opts for “assurance,” which is insufferably on-brand. Still, I’m deathly curious how the lawyers—or perhaps marketing—landed on their preferred terminology. Surely, it’s more than “at Google, the marketing people are all lawyers, and at Apple, the lawyers are all marketing people.”

Right?