H.R. 3149: Why This Bill Endangers Every American's Privacy

I'm writing to urge you to reject H.R. 3149, the App Store Accountability Act. While protecting children online is important, this bill takes an overly broad approach that jeopardizes everyone's privacy, security, and free expression rights. The legislation would require universal age verification for every user—even adults downloading harmless apps. That means millions of Americans would need to submit government IDs, biometric face scans, or other sensitive data just to download a calculator app or game. This creates massive centralized databases of family information, becoming honeypots for data breaches and surveillance. Privacy advocates and constitutional experts have raised serious concerns. A federal court already blocked Texas's similar law, with a judge comparing it to forcing bookstores to check every customer's ID before entering. As the James Madison Institute and New America have noted, there are far less invasive ways to help parents manage their children's device usage without mandating ID checks for lawful adult activities. Existing parental controls already let families make these decisions themselves. Parents who want monitoring tools can enable them voluntarily. This bill removes that choice and imposes a one-size-fits-all surveillance system on everyone. We can protect young people without compromising basic digital rights. I'd encourage you to support more targeted approaches that preserve privacy while still empowering families. Thank you for your time and consideration.