AVPA tells US Congress group SCREEN Act gets age assurance right

Federal U.S. lawmakers are considering online age assurance legislation to cover pornographic services across the whole country, in the wake of state laws that have met with mixed success.

Age Verification Provider’s Association (AVPA) Executive Director Iain Corby was invited to an event organized by the Congressional Family Caucus to discuss the legislation, where he endorsed the measure as “the right federal law.”

The “Shielding Children’s Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net Act” is sponsored by Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) in the House and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) in the Senate. Republicans hold a legislative trifecta, meaning Miller and lee will not have to garner bipartisan support at any level to pass the Act into law.

The SCREEN Act explicitly states that self-assertion is not adequate, that age verification should be applied to all visitors who are determined to be visiting from an IP address within the U.S., and that online service providers can choose between third-party provider of “technology verification measures.”

“The evolution of our technology has now enabled the use of age verification technology that is cost efficient, not unduly burdensome, and can be operated narrowly in a manner that ensures only adults have access to a website’s online pornographic content,” the Act says.

The discussion began with a review of the frequency with which American teens access pornography, the potential harms underage exposure to porn can cause, and the mixed success state and federal laws have had surviving legal challenges. A 2004 challenge to the enforcement mechanism of 1998’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) was successful in significant part because courts (naively) believed that filters applied at the level of the electronic device could effectively prevent children from accessing age restricted content.

Corby notes that the AVPA represents 30 age assurance providers, a third of which are based in the U.S. None of them suffered any headline-grabbing data breaches, despite performing over a billion age checks in various sectors over the course of last year.

He endorses the technological neutrality of the Act, as well as its application “to pornography wherever it is found,” rather than at the level of an app store or somewhere else more removed from the content in question.

Corby reviewed the methods of age assurance available on the market, from biometric facial age estimation to bank verification, and noted that all are privacy-preserving and do not involve retaining personal data.

The age assurance methods approved so far by the UK’s Ofcom will be explored in a free Biometric Update webinar featuring Corby, along with Goode Intelligence CEO Alan Goode and representatives of Ondato, Luciditi, Daon and JT Group on March 6.

He notes that device-level controls are rendered ineffective if multiple people use the device, and that app store restrictions do not address the main channel of online pornography, which is not apps.

Needemand CBO Jean Michel Polit demonstrated how his company’s BorderAge software uses gesture biometrics to estimate age without collecting any sensitive personal information.

The discussion concluded with speculation about how likely the Supreme Court is to block federal age assurance legislation, with American Principles Project Terry Schilling suggesting that “The fact that the Supreme Court refused to block the Texas law already suggests they see merit in it.”

Schilling also pointed out that by setting limits for online data retention, the SCREEN Act could actually increase American’s online privacy.

The SCREEN Act has been referred to the House Subcommittee on Innovation, Data, and Commerce in 2023, where it has languished since.

Protecting against predatory apps

The Digital Childhood Alliance, a newly formed coalition of more than 50 child advocacy organizations, does not mention pornography in an endorsement of the App Store Accountability Act, but calls for an end to “children’s easy access to predatory apps.”

The App Store Accountability Act would introduce requirements for parental approval of app downloads by children, accurate and transparent age ratings for apps, and secure age verification.

The legislation was introduced in November by Lee, with further steps pending.

Kate Ruane of the Center for Democracy and Technology called the attempts to shift blame for exposing children to online harms “the policy-debate equivalent of a game of ‘not it,’” in comments to the Wall Street Journal.  The CDT has contributed to this game by misrepresenting the state of the art in age assurance in an amicus brief offered in the legal challenge against Texas’ law.

Legislative proposals to impose age checks on app stores are being considered in nine states across the U.S.

Article Topics

age estimation  |  age verification  |  app stores  |  AVPA  |  Digital Childhood Alliance  |  legislation  |  SCREEN Act  |  United States