Utah Governor Spencer Cox has signed a bill mandating app stores of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) to verify users' ages and require parental consent for those under 18 to download apps. 

The App Store Accountability Act - the first of its kind in the U.S. - puts the responsibility of age verification on app store providers, instead of individual apps. The app stores must also share age category and consent data with app developers.

This law tasks Utah's Division of Consumer Protection with making rules establishing processes by which an app store provider may verify an account holder's age.

Certain violations of the state's law will be deemed deceptive trade practices, like knowingly misrepresenting information in the parental consent disclosure.

The law creates a private right of action for parents of harmed minors, meaning they can sue app stores or developers for any violations. Parents can be awarded $1,000 per violation or more in damages.

App developers compliant with the law's requirements will be shielded from liability under the law's safe harbor provision. The law is expected to go into effect on May 7.

Meta (NASDAQ:META), Snap (NYSE:SNAP), and Elon Musk's X praised the Utah law as it centralizes age verification and parental consent within an app store. "This approach spares users from repeatedly submitting personal information to countless individual apps and online services," the companies stated.

App store owners previously opposed taking the responsibility of age verification away from developers. Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) said Utah's bill raised "real privacy and safety risks," while Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) said "the right place to address the dangers of age-restricted content online is the limited set of websites and apps that host that kind of content."