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The author is a Senior Fellow of Technology Policy at the Kato Institute and an Adjunct Professor at the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas law that requires users to verify their age when visiting websites with pornographic content. This is the latest measure aimed at keeping young people safe online, taking part in the UK’s online safety law and the ban on social media use for under 16 generations.
Protecting children is the intentional motivation of these laws, but blunt instruments that apply to nuanced issues. Instead of simply protecting minors, they are creating new privacy risks.
The only way to prove that someone is not a minor is to prove that they are beyond a certain age. This means that Texas validation requirements apply to not only children and teenagers, but also adult internet users.
The Supreme Court decision attempts to limit its application to a specific type of content and compares this to offline verification methods, but some important differences are ignored.
First, uploading data such as a driver’s license to verify your age on the website is a much more complicated and lasting interaction than quickly displaying the same ID to an assistant when purchasing alcohol or other age-restricted products in a store.
In some cases, the law requires a website and app to retain user information for a certain period of time. Such data can be advantageous to malicious hackers. They may also be at risk of generating confidential information about individuals’ online behavior.
Second, adults who do not have an ID that is not issued by the government will be prevented from considering internet content that they have constitutional access. This is not the same as limiting offline purchases. There is a lack of IDs to buy alcohol, so it doesn’t prevent anyone from accessing the information.
Supporters of verification proposals often point to alternatives that can estimate a person’s age without an official ID. Biometrics can be used to assess age via photos uploaded online. You can view your financial or internet history. However, these options are also invasive. And age estimates via photographs tend to be less accurate in certain groups of people, including people with dark skin tones.
Despite these trade-offs, suggestions for ageing continue to appear around the world. And the problems they are trying to solve are very broad. Policymakers and parents are concerned that there appears to be a range of time young people spend online exposure to certain types of content, such as pornography, depictions of eating disorders, bullying, and self-harm.
Young people today have more access to information than any generation before them. And while this can offer many benefits, it can cause concern about the ease with which they can access harmful content.
However, age verification requirements run the risk of blocking content beyond porn. They can intentionally restrict access to important information about sexual health and sexuality. Additionally, ID requirements may allow young people to be safe online by requesting more detailed information. Similar to information obtained from adults, this could create a honeypot of data about their online presence. They will face new risks posed by the very provisions aimed at making them safer.
The age verification method appears well intended, but it creates new privacy pitfalls for all internet users.
Keeping your children and teenagers safe online is the problem best solved by parents, not policymakers.
Enabling young people to have difficult conversations and make wise choices online offers a wider range of options to solve problems without sacrificing privacy in the process.
