As a parent of teens who spends a great deal of time talking with other families, I hear the same concern repeated in different ways: keeping kids safe online feels harder than it should be. Parents want to do the right thing. We want our children to enjoy the creativity, learning, and connection that I see firsthand as a content creator, and we know technology can offer.
But many of us feel like we’re navigating an obstacle course with blindfolds on. This feeling doesn’t come from a lack of effort; it comes from a system that asks parents to manage digital safety one app at a time. Every platform has its own rules, controls, and definitions of “child-friendly.” Some provide strong protections, others offer minimal safeguards, and many bury important settings behind layers of menus. Meanwhile, kids, especially teens, adapt quickly. There are more than 330,000 teens in Maryland, and it wouldn’t take much for them to learn how to bypass age gates or ignore warnings that were never designed with real oversight in mind.
The reality is that most families don’t interact with apps individually. We interact with app stores where downloads happen. That’s where decisions are made, yet current digital safety practices rarely reflect that reality. Instead, responsibility is scattered across countless developers, leaving parents to piece together a fragmented system while hoping nothing slips through the cracks.
This is why proposals like the App Store Accountability Act deserve serious attention from our federal lawmakers. By establishing age verification and parental approval at the app store level, the legislation introduces a single, consistent checkpoint before an app ever reaches a child’s device. Rather than forcing parents to master dozens of separate systems, it offers one place to manage permissions, a structure that aligns with how families already use technology.
Putting this responsibility at the app store level also makes practical sense for Marylanders. App stores control access, distribution, and updates. They are uniquely positioned to implement standardized safeguards at scale. When expectations are clear and consistent, parents gain confidence and peace of mind that age-appropriate boundaries are being enforced before problems arise, not after.
Unfortunately, not all ideas currently being discussed move us in that direction. Some rely heavily on self-reported age, a method that amounts to little more than an honor system. Anyone like me who has spent time around tech-savvy kids knows how ineffective that approach is. A single altered birthdate should not be enough to override parental intent.
Other proposals only apply to apps that voluntarily separate adult and child experiences.
That creates unintended incentives for companies to eliminate youth-specific features altogether, allowing them to sidestep accountability. Parents are often most concerned about apps that involve messaging with strangers, algorithm-driven content, or unclear data practices, precisely the areas where optional compliance falls short.
There are also approaches that push responsibility back onto individual developers, recreating the same inconsistent environment families already struggle with. When safety standards vary widely and enforcement is uneven, parents are left guessing which apps take their children’s well-being seriously. Guesswork is not a safety strategy.
The App Store Accountability Act offers a clearer alternative. It replaces a patchwork of rules with a national standard that applies across all apps downloaded from an app store. No matter where a family lives, parents would have access to the same protections and the same tools. That consistency matters, especially as teens in our state move between platforms and devices with ease.
This isn’t about restricting innovation or monitoring every click. It’s about reinforcing parental involvement at critical decision points. When guardrails are built into the system, parents can focus less on constant surveillance and more on guidance, conversation, and trust. That’s the balance families in Maryland are striving for.
Patrice Cameau
Cameau is a Maryland-based mother of three and wellness content creator. She focuses on motherhood, travel, and inspiring others to recharge and live a healthy lifestyle.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
