Porn battle comes to Ohio with bill requiring users to verify age with state IDs

Ohio is next up in the parade of states looking to pass laws that would require pornographic websites to implement digital age assurance measures. Introduced by Steve Demetriou, R-Bainbridge Twp., and Josh Williams, R-Sylvania, House Bill 84 would force every porn watcher to provide proof of age in the form of a state ID document before entering a steamy site.

“Clicking a box that says ‘Yes I am 18’ is not gonna prevent a 15-year-old boy from going on that website,” Demetriou says. “Any reasonable person understands that.”

Coverage of the bill in Ohio Capital Journal quotes Demetriou, interviews users who would stop visiting porn sites if they were required to upload a state identity document, and features a lengthy statement from Aylo, which owns the world’s largest porn sites.

But it does not include comment from age assurance providers – who, given the opportunity, might have offered a few points of clarification.

Misconceptions fuel entrenched fears about age assurance tools

The piece states that “verification would be done by submitting a photo of your state ID or by entering your personal information into a third-party system that will then run your details through other online databases.” Moreover, “it could also use facial recognition technology, capturing photos of users.”

These are vague descriptions that fail to differentiate between 1-n “facial recognition” and facial matching between selfie and document for the purpose of age assurance.

The article quotes porn enthusiast Mallory McMaster, who says she “would not be watching pornography on a website that required me to upload a photo of my driver’s license,” because “I’m not sure where it would end up.”

“We’re creating a log of porn that every individual watches, and it’s tracked with our driver’s license and a photo of our faces,” McMaster says. “Whether it’s hacked by someone who wants to blackmail and extort us, or ICE agents who question our citizenship, or local police investigating an alleged crime of some sort, they will all have access to this information. I wouldn’t want my local law enforcement agencies watching what pornography I’m watching, even though that would probably really entertain them.”

This apparently fails to account for the key principle of data minimization, which enables users to confirm their age without sharing any other personally identifying information, and is commonly applied as best practice among reputable providers.

Age assurance providers aim for privacy, but current White House could erode trust

Frustrating as it may be to digital ID professionals, McMaster’s beliefs – that any information shared online is information accessible to hostile authorities – speak to a lack of understanding when it comes to age assurance technology, most of which takes pains to process as little data as possible, for as little time as possible, in order to preserve privacy, which is among its core business offerings. In the words of Demetriou on data retention, “it’s not like that’s stored for a long period of time, it’s immediately deleted.”

McMaster’s comments also suggest education campaigns targeting porn users may be as important as those aimed at legislators. Yet while her concerns verge on paranoia, they stem from a grain of truth that appears to be growing.

Worries about mass surveillance are unlikely to be assuaged by an administration that increasingly appears determined to disregard privacy norms. The Ohio bill has mainly GOP cosponsors, and while it has support from at least three Democrats, political allegiances may drift further apart as the landscape changes.

For its part, Aylo says it supports age assurance in principle, but argues that “any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy.” (This ignores that in third-party scenarios, porn providers aren’t the ones collecting user data.)

It also notes, testily, that age assurance laws have been shown to push people off its flagship site, Pornhub, they do not stop people from accessing porn, but merely push them to “darker corners of the internet.”

“In practice, the laws have just made the internet more dangerous for adults and children,” it says.

In response, Demetriou says “we’re not trying to push adults into the black market of porn,” and compares digital age assurance methods to asking for ID in a brick-and-mortar adult video store.

Article Topics

age verification  |  Aylo  |  biometrics  |  children  |  face biometrics  |  legislation  |  Ohio  |  United States