Doesn’t care if its devices can’t be sold in regions that require ID verification.
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GrapheneOS will remain usable by anyone around the world without requiring personal information, identification or an account. GrapheneOS and our services will remain available internationally. If GrapheneOS devices can't be sold in a region due to their regulations, so be it. March 20, 2026
The statement came after Brazil's Digital ECA (Law 15.211) took effect on March 17, imposing fines of up to R$50 million (roughly $9.5 million) per violation on operating system providers that fail to implement age verification. California's Digital Age Assurance Act (AB-1043), signed by Governor Newsom in October 2025, takes effect on January 1, 2027 , and requires every OS provider to collect a user's age or date of birth during account setup and pipe that data to app stores and developers through a real-time API. Colorado's SB26-051 passed the state senate on March 3 with similar requirements.
You may like California introduces age verification law for all operating systems, including Linux and SteamOS — user age verified during OS account setup AI vibe-coded operating system is so bad it can't even run Doom Anthropic refuses to lower AI guardrails for The Pentagon Motorola and GrapheneOS announced a long-term partnership at MWC on March 2, to bring to bring the hardened OS to future Motorola hardware, ending GrapheneOS's long-standing exclusivity to Google Pixel devices. A GrapheneOS-powered Motorola phone is expected in 2027. If Motorola sells devices with GrapheneOS pre-installed, those devices would need to comply with local regulations in every market where they ship, or Motorola may need to restrict sales geographically.
GrapheneOS isn’t the first and won’t be the last company to outright refuse compliance with incoming age verification laws . The developers of open-source calculator firmware DB48X issued a legal notice recently, stating that their software "does not, cannot and will not implement age verification,” while MidnightBSD updated its license to ban users in Brazil.
California's law doesn’t require photo ID or biometric verification; users simply self-report their age during setup. Critics, including over 400 computer scientists who signed an open letter, have argued that the laws create surveillance infrastructure without meaningfully protecting children, since self-declaration is trivially bypassed.
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/software/operating-systems/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/software/operating-systems/grapheneos-refuses-to-comply-with-age-verification-laws#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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