Age Verification Laws Meet VPNs and Lawsuits in a War Over Speech and Privacy

A new crop of restrictive laws faces a friendly reception in the courts but ongoing public resistance.

Thwarted for years by the liberating power of the internet, social conservatives have resumed their crusade against sexually explicit material through age verification requirements. While sold as a means of ensuring that only adults access adult-oriented websites, the laws require people to abandon anonymity and expose potentially sensitive personal information. The browsing public has responded with lawsuits and an embrace of technology that bypasses restrictions. That may not be enough.

Government Pushes Parents Aside to Determine Which Websites are Appropriate

"This is something that I believe will save the current generation and generations to come if we're successful," Florida House Speaker Paul Renner (R–Palm Coast) commented last March upon the passage of HB-3. The bill, which Gov. Ron DeSantis subsequently signed, went into effect January 1. It bans access to pornographic websites for those under 18 years of age. It also forbids those under 14 from opening social media accounts (14- and 15-year-olds can do so with parental permission).

While people argue over whether government officials or parents should be deciding what minors can see and read on the internet, there's general agreement that at least some material is inappropriate for kids. The trick for those who want the government to act and who pushed the passage of HB3 in Florida and similar legislation elsewhere is determining the age of people browsing websites.

Louisiana, which pioneered the flurry of age-verification laws, has a digital version of its driver's license called the LA Wallet. That digital ID can be used to establish a web browser's age to the satisfaction of the law, while also revealing the holder's identity. Most states don't have anything like the LA Wallet.

"In states without a digital identification program like Louisiana's, porn sites must pay third-party age-verification providers to use software to compare a user's face with their ID photo, held up to the camera, or to use AI to determine if their face looks obviously older than 18," The Atlantic's Marc Novicoff noted in a recent article on such laws.

That's clumsy, at best. It's also an added expense that can lead to legal liability for websites if they make mistakes in carding users or handling sensitive data. Some adult sites, like Pornhub, have preferred to block access to residents of states that have age verification laws. This month, the company extended its ban to users in Florida and South Carolina, which also passed an age verification law.

The Tech-Savvy Use Technology To Bypass Enforcement Efforts

But it would be more accurate to say that Pornhub and others have blocked the users who seem to be coming from age verification states. This is where tech fixes come in. Using virtual private networks (VPNs), people can make it seem as if they're surfing the web from less-restrictive jurisdictions. Business is booming.

"Google searches for online tools like VPNs have surged in Florida after Pornhub, one of the world's largest adult websites, blocked access to users in the state," CBS News reported earlier this month. "Since the end of November, Google searches for VPNs have surged in the Florida, according to Google Trends. From the week of Dec. 22 - 28 to Dec. 29 - Jan. 4, searches nearly doubled. Since then, the numbers have gone even higher."

VPNs are popular workarounds for internet users living under restrictive laws worldwide. Others use VPNs to access streaming media content unavailable where they live. And they're popular for aficionados of adult websites who don't want to identify themselves to strangers. Publications like the Miami New Times publish guides to bypassing restrictions, though VPNs are not difficult to use.

So, problem solved, right? Control freaks who want to substitute their judgment for that of parents get to pass their age verification laws, and web users can ignore those laws with ease. Everybody is happy! Except, there's more to the issue than that.

VPNs Aren't a Solution as More Places Become Restrictive

"While VPNs may be able to disguise the source of your internet activity, they are not foolproof—nor should they be necessary to access legally protected speech," warn Rindala Alajaji and Paige Collings of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "With varying mandates across different regions, it will become increasingly difficult for VPNs to effectively circumvent these age verification requirements because each state or country may have different methods of enforcement and different types of identification checks, such as government-issued IDs, third-party verification systems, or biometric data."

VPNs rely on routing user traffic through servers in jurisdictions relatively free of restrictive laws. As governments become more censor-happy, the ranks of "safe" places where web traffic can seem to come from declines. Users and VPN companies may have to pick their poison.

"VPN providers will struggle to keep up with these constantly changing laws and ensure users can bypass the restrictions, especially as more sophisticated detection systems are introduced to identify and block VPN traffic," Alajaji and Collings add.

EFF publishes a comprehensive guide to using VPNs. But the organization emphasizes that "we must stand up against these types of laws, not just for the sake of free expression, but to protect the free flow of information that is essential to a free society."

A Future of Lawsuits, Restrictions, and Resistance

Unfortunately, after knocking down earlier legislative attempts at censoring the internet, the U.S. Supreme Court appears relatively friendly to the current crop of laws. The court recently heard arguments in a challenge to Texas's age-verification law and seemed more receptive than in the past to government efforts to apply age restrictions on the internet.

"This time around, the justices seemed inclined to erase the distinction between accessing porn online and in person," The Atlantic's Novicoff commented, comparing the laws to requirements (not always enforced, as I remember from my youth) for ID to purchase adult magazines in stores.

That may lead to a loss of anonymity on the web—not just when accessing sexually oriented websites, but possibly other material that government officials believe ought to be restricted or whose users should be tracked. It will also lead to an escalating technological race between enforcers and those dodging restrictions. Digital credentials, including Louisiana's LA Wallet, have already been stolen and misused. Techniques for fooling online identification efforts have a healthy future.

VPNs and legal challenges are only the latest developments in an ongoing war over online privacy and speech. There's a lot more at stake than who gets to decide what websites are appropriate for kids.