Sarah Gardner – CEO of the HEAT INITIATIVE – “Unfortunately, Apple’s announcement is not an earnest investment in keeping kids safe, it is another stage in a race to the bottom as tech companies like Apple and Meta fight each other to take the least amount of responsibility to protect children from online harms.
While a few of these updates, like Declared Age Range API, are steps in the right direction, the rest are inadequate. Apple is still putting the safety of its youngest users primarily in the hands of profit-driven developers around the world instead of purposefully curating the App Store to be a safe place for kids, like they promise. Our children need measures like third party review and verification of app age ratings and better rating enforcement and accountability.
At the end of the day, today’s announcement highlights all the ways they could do so much more to protect kids–it is devastating they continue to choose not to.”
