Age gate present for restricted content

Age gates that present a 'Are you 21? Yes/No' dialog are trivially bypassed by any child with a tap. Platform policies reject these as inadequate verification: Apple requires that alcohol, gambling, and adult content apps have a 17+ rating AND demonstrate real age verification. COPPA §312.5 and CCPA §1798.120(c) require that data collection from minors be gated on verifiable parental consent — a client-side yes/no check satisfies neither. A gambling feature with a 12+ rating and no age gate will be rejected by Apple and may trigger Play Store removal.

Replace yes/no age confirmation dialogs with a birth-year entry validated server-side. Store the verified age server-side and gate all restricted content requests against the stored value — client-side checks alone are not sufficient:

// API route: verify-age.ts
const { birthYear } = req.body;
const age = new Date().getFullYear() - birthYear;
if (age < 21) return res.status(403).json({ error: 'Age restriction' });
await db.users.update({ where: { id: userId }, data: { ageVerified: true } });

For gambling apps, implement geographic restrictions in addition to age verification — block jurisdictions where gambling is illegal at the API layer, not just the UI layer. Set the rating to 17+ for any app with gambling or alcohol purchasing features.