On any given weeknight, our kitchen table doubles as a classroom, and the laptops and tablets my kids use are their utensils. One of my kids might be reviewing online videos for a history course, another might be collaborating with classmates on a shared document. As parents who grew up without the same experience, this shift to a more digitized educational environment might be jarring—but it reflects the reality of what school looks like in 2026.
However, as a parent of kids growing up in this digital world, I also worry about what an internet without many guardrails means for my kids. From inappropriate content to predatory behavior and the darker corners of social media, it’s become increasingly clear that it is past time for new protections for kids online.
Georgia’s lawmakers have recognized the need and are already exploring several proposals to give parents new peace of mind. But as the legislature considers proposals like SB 467, a bill modeled after legislation being pushed by social platforms in other states, we must consider how they could create more problems than they solve.
On paper, SB 467 might sound like common sense. It would require app stores to collect sensitive, age-verification data from all users—such as government IDs or biometric scans—and then place users into age categories. For those under 18, it would require app stores to send age signals to app developers and prompt parents for consent to download apps and make in-app purchases.
In practice, the bill’s proposed process should raise concerns. At a time when data breaches are increasingly common, we should be asking how centralizing Georgians’ sensitive data in app store systems could introduce new risks of breaches and data theft—potentially exposing information, including one’s age, address, and other personal details. This risk is no hypothetical: third-party age ID services used by the likes of TikTok, Uber, and X have already been hacked, exposing the data of tens of thousands of users.
There is also the real concern about the barriers the bill would create to user access. For many families, navigating paperwork and identity verification systems is not as simple as lawmakers might expect. Many families lack ready access to government-issued identification; others might be worried about the use of biometric data; and some could face language barriers. Adding age verification and parental consent on top of those roadblocks risks widening opportunity gaps and leaving some students behind.
None of these concerns negate the need for new precautions—but they should call us to rethink our approach. Georgia’s lawmakers are right to take the online safety debate seriously. But if we are not careful, we could adopt a policy that threatens privacy, limits access to learning tools, and may not even survive in court. As the federal debate on this subject continues to unfold and better solutions emerge, I hope to see our state lawmakers consider how we can build a safer internet without the consequences imposed by SB 467.
Caren Solomon Bharwani is the founder of Thinking Aloud Strategies and a parent of three students in the Atlanta Public Schools District.
