Next up with an age-verification plan to keep US kids off porn sites is Alabama

A pair of politicians in the U.S. state of Alabama say they will re-introduce legislation gating adult content online, taxing sales on the sites and requiring consent to be recorded from people who appear in content on the site, reports local NBC affiliate WSFA.

They want to require businesses publishing pornography to employ age verification, a demand already in place in the states of Utah, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Mississippi and Virginia. Two additional states have passed gating laws that will be enacted in January.

Age verification apps would effectively bar anyone younger than 18 years old, according to lawmakers.

Opponents, including advocacy the Free Speech Coalition, disagree with claims of effectiveness. The group says there is research indicating, for example, that 41 percent of U.S. children aged 11 to 14 years old use a VPN, which would defeat some gating schemes.

Alabama’s previous attempt to pass relevant legislation failed, reportedly because it was introduced too late in the state house session. That bill would have required adult sites to check government-issued ID documents, or use “Any commercially reasonable method that relies on

public or private transactional data to verify the age of the individual attempting to access the information is at least 18 years of age or older.”

There is very little known about how gating would be accomplished in any Alabama law or how pornography would be defined in a new bill. Plans call for someone using a physical ID card to gain access to adult sites, but the introduction of legislation is many weeks away.

A state lawmaker working on the legislation told another NBC affiliate, WPMI, that since Alabama does not have the digital ID option afforded to Louisiana by its mobile driver’s license, lawmakers “are looking at a third party provider that would check IDs.”

A bit further down the line will be Constitutional challenges to resulting laws.

Article Topics

age verification  |  Alabama  |  biometrics  |  legislation  |  selfie biometrics