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Brazil’s Law 15.211/2025, informally called the Felca Law, took effect on March 17, 2026 and establishes child- and adolescent-safety obligations for digital products and services, including operating systems and app stores. The law does not explicitly ban Linux or require an immediate blanket block on operating systems that lack native age-verification capabilities; minimum technical implementation requirements remain subject to Executive-branch regulation.
Claims that the law mandates a Linux ban were amplified after MidnightBSD voluntarily blocked users in Brazil, rather than by a direct legal order. The law’s proportionality provisions, exemptions for essential internet functions, application-level responsibility for restricting inappropriate access, and limits on indiscriminate surveillance indicate that compliance measures may be tailored. Linux environments can also support parental controls and content ratings through tools such as GNOME Malcontent, OARS, Flathub controls, PAM, AppArmor, and SELinux.
See the reporting duties and controls this puts on the clock.
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MidnightBSD blocked users in Brazil and stated that Brazilian residents were not authorized to use the system. The cited account characterizes the restriction as a voluntary project decision rather than a Brazilian legal mandate.
Brazil's National Data Protection Authority included Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, on an oversight list. The cited account states that this inclusion did not ban Canonical or Ubuntu.
Brazil enacted Law 15.211/2025, the Digital Statute for Children and Adolescents. The law covers certain digital products and services, including operating systems and app stores, and establishes child-safety obligations whose minimum technical requirements are to be defined by Executive-branch regulation.
Law 15.211/2025 became effective in Brazil, imposing child- and adolescent-safety obligations on covered digital products and services. Its operational minimum requirements remained subject to future Executive-branch regulation.
See what this changes for your reporting obligations and which controls it puts on the clock.
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California lawmakers unanimously passed **AB 1856**, exempting qualifying open-source operating systems, applications, software components, and extension storefronts from the state’s Digital Age Assurance Act. Sent to Governor Gavin Newsom, the measure would remove uncertainty over whether Linux distributions and package-management ecosystems would have to collect or transmit users’ age information; software under GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache licenses is covered by the exemption. The underlying age-assurance requirements are due to apply to proprietary platforms including Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android from January 1, 2027. AB 1856 also narrows the definition of a user, limits unnecessary age-signal requests, and creates a good-faith safe harbor for inaccurate signals. The exemption addresses concerns that broadly drafted child-safety and app-store laws—including Colorado SB51 and Brazil’s Digital ECA—could otherwise extend to Linux repositories and package managers such as `apt`, `dnf`, and `pacman`, creating compliance and privacy burdens for distributions including Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and Arch Linux.
Aug 30, 2026
Brazil’s National Data Protection Authority (**ANPD**) ordered Discord to suspend its **Go Live** livestreaming feature nationwide, saying the platform failed to take reasonable measures to protect children and adolescents from serious harms including self-harm, suicide-related abuse, harassment, and violence. The preventive order gives Discord three business days to disable the feature in Brazil, applies to equivalent live video-sharing capabilities rather than the entire platform, and requires anti-circumvention controls to prevent users from bypassing the restriction. The action follows cases cited by Brazilian authorities involving minors allegedly encouraged to harm themselves during Discord broadcasts, including the death of a 13-year-old girl and another intervention involving a girl preparing to die by suicide online. ANPD said Discord’s live-video architecture limits real-time inspection, that its moderation depends too heavily on flawed automation and user reports, and that technical changes made in March — including reported end-to-end encryption changes to Go Live — reduced protections for minors. Discord said it received the order, disputed the regulator’s characterization of its safety practices, and argued the suspension was premature, while ANPD said the feature will remain blocked until the company proves effective technical, security, and governance safeguards and obtains express authorization to restore it.
Aug 14, 2026
Apple introduced expanded *age assurance* capabilities for the App Store to support compliance with new or emerging regulations in multiple jurisdictions, including Brazil, Australia, Singapore, Utah, and Louisiana. As of **Feb. 24, 2026**, Apple began blocking downloads of **18+ rated apps** in Brazil, Australia, and Singapore unless the user is confirmed to be an adult, using what Apple describes as “reasonable methods” for age confirmation. Apple also expanded the **Declared Age Range API** (iOS/iPadOS/macOS) and related platform components (including PermissionKit’s *Significant Change API*, a new StoreKit age-rating property type, and App Store Server Notifications) to provide developers with an age category plus signals about the assurance method and whether regulatory requirements apply; in Brazil, certain disclosures (e.g., loot boxes) can drive an app’s rating to **18+**. Broader policy debate continues around online age assurance in the U.S. and internationally, with jurisdictions adopting or considering stricter mandates and platforms preparing new verification requirements. Public skepticism remains elevated due to backlash against age-gating (including reported VPN usage spikes in response to the UK’s requirements) and concerns about data security following breaches at age-verification providers (e.g., **Sumsub** disclosing a previously undetected 2024 compromise). The policy environment is also being shaped by U.S. state laws and litigation, including the Supreme Court’s decision in *Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton* upholding Texas’s age verification law, while proponents argue that privacy-preserving age assurance approaches are becoming more technically mature and scalable.
Jun 29, 2026