Age assurance laws influence search as users try and avoid biometric age checks

The debate over biometric age assurance measures for porn sites has moved to the pages of mainstream U.S. media, with ABC News publishing a substantial piece that surveys various opinions on age checks. The Supreme Court is expected to decide by the end of June on Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, the Texas court case that will set a precedent on age assurance legislation and is expected to have major repercussions for the national debate.

Meanwhile, some are asking if the age assurance measures being proposed are effective enough to warrant all the fuss. While the virtual private network (VPN) workaround is well-known, a new study says an even simpler hack is trending.

The paper, a collaboration by university researchers, asks the question: “Do Age-Verification Bills Change Search Behavior?” The quick answer is, yes. Using Google Trends data and a preregistered synthetic control design, the authors set out to examine the impact of age assurance laws across four key dimensions of digital behavior: “searches for the largest compliant website, the largest non-compliant website, VPN services, and adult content generally.”

Their analysis observes, three months after age assurance laws pass, “a 51 percent reduction in searches for the dominant compliant platform, accompanied by significant increases in searches for both the dominant non-compliant platform (48.1 percent) and VPNservices (23.6 percent).”

Age assurance laws are not the only factor: in 17 U.S. states that have enacted age assurance laws, the “dominant compliant platform,” Pornhub, has blocked its service in protest, meaning even users who search for Pornhub aren’t able to access it. However, evidence suggests making porn available with compliant age verification or age estimation is no more appealing. According to reporting from Mashable, in Louisiana, where Pornhub begrudgingly operates in compliance with age assurance laws because of the state’s well-established digital wallet, traffic has dropped 80 percent.

Meanwhile, the big winner is non-compliant porn site XVideos, for which searches increased by almost 50 percent.

‘Not your name, not your face, and not even your actual date of birth’

True to form, Age Verification Providers Association (AVPA) director Iain Corby appears in the ABC Ness piece to explain how biometric age assurance works and make the case that “it’s possible to prove your age entirely on your own cell phone, so no personal data need ever leave the palm of your hand.” AVPA’s position on VPNs is that just because there are ways to break a law, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make it.

In a post on LinkedIn, Robin Tombs, CEO of AVPA member Yoti, addresses a similar argument in response to the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), which Tombs calls out for waffling on its position on facial age estimation in an Amicus Brief submitted to the Supreme Court.

“One of CDT’s main arguments against FAE is that it can be circumvented,” Tombs says. “The academic paper states it’s easy to replay a video or display a photo to a phone or laptop camera to spoof ‘state of the art’ face recognition.” But the presentation attack detection (PAD) models tested to reach that conclusion are grossly out of date.

“CDT failed to clarify these 2 PAD models were developed over five years ago,” says Tombs. Neither model has been tested by iBeta Quality Assurance in accordance with ISO 30107-3 and conforming with US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) PAD Level 1 and/or Level 2 performance.”

He calls it “hugely credibility damaging and poor form for CDT to rely upon outdated PAD models as evidence to try and persuade the Supreme Court that FAE can be easily circumvented.” Furthermore, he challenges anyone who doesn’t trust tested age estimation algorithms to attend the Age Summit in Amsterdam in April, to see the tech first-hand.

In addition to trust, the biggest overall factors in how the age assurance issue develops are tied to deep contradictions at the heart of U.S. culture. Most everyone agrees that protecting kids from harm is good, but no one wants to impinge on First Amendment rights. Moreover, no one wants their identity associated with porn, even though Americans consume it in droves: ABC quotes a recent study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, in which more than 70 percent of men and 40 percent of women say they’ve consumed sexually explicit content in the past year. Shame, it seems, is a powerful drug.

Article Topics

age verification  |  AVPA  |  biometrics  |  data privacy  |  face biometrics  |  legislation  |  Yoti