Age assurance differs across continents, as Europe, UK take stronger stance than US

The wild frontier of age assurance legislation continues to take shape, as legal decisions and regulatory trends create incremental shifts in policy that reflect regional differentiation. In the U.S., an Ohio judge has struck down a law restricting teens’ access to social media. Virginia has had its proposed age verification law labeled “a legal time bomb.” And the attorney general of New Jersey is suing Discord, claiming the platform doesn’t do enough to keep children under 13 safe from sexual predators and harmful content.

Meanwhile, Italy is coming to the table on age assurance requirements for porn sites, and the UK is looking at darker corners of the child protection debate, as it investigates whether the provider of an online suicide discussion forum has violated child safety laws.

Ohio social media law dies at hands of NetChoice, district court

Chalk up another win in U.S. courts for NetChoice, the lobby group representing Silicon Valley’s biggest companies. Bloomberg Law reports U.S. District Court judge Algenon L. Marbley has granted a permanent injunction against the Social Media Parental Notification Act, which restricted social media to users 16 and over without parental consent, and required social media platforms to implement age assurance measures.

NetChoice’s weapon of choice in the case was the versatile First Amendment, a favourite among critics of age assurance technology. The group argued that Ohio’s law was unconstitutional because it requires Ohians to submit personal data for access.

Judge Marbley’s decision enjoins Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost from enforcing the law.

Calls for Virginia to veto age assurance law

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin is also facing calls to veto the state’s SB 854, which covers age assurance laws. Chamber of Progress bills itself as a “new tech industry coalition devoted to a progressive society, economy, workforce, and consumer climate” – or, alternately, “a center-left tech industry policy coalition promoting technology’s progressive future.”

A release from the organization quotes Chamber of Progress Northeast Government Relations Director Brianna January, who says the Virginia bill is “a legal time bomb. If signed, it will blow up in court just like similar laws in other states – wasting taxpayer dollars while doing nothing to protect kids online.”

A notice on its website specifies that Chamber of Progress “is supported by our corporate partners,” but “remains true to our stated principles even when our partners disagree. No partner companies sit on our board of directors or have a vote on our work.”

The corporate partners in question, however, happen to show significant overlap with NetChoice. Apple, Google and Amazon are all present (although biometrics firms Pindrop and Clear are, too). Its founder and CEO Adam Kovacevich is a former Google lobbyist, and most of its political positions suggest it is, in effect, fighting the same battles as NetChoice, on behalf of the same companies – just donning a different mask.

NJ AG says Discord is breeding ground for extremism

New Jersey has become the first U.S. state to sue Discord, the online messaging platform, over allegations that it misled parents about safety features and left minors exposed to violence and sexual content.

CBS News quotes NJ attorney general Matthew Platkin, who says “Discord has been at the center of numerous criminal cases involving predators that were found to have used the app to engage in sexual grooming, extortion and exploitation. Multiple reports have also described Discord as a breeding ground for violent hate and extremism, a space where violent attacks are planned and promoted.”

Platkin accuses the platform of having “porous security features that Discord knows do not work as promised.”

Discord disputes the claims, and says it plans to defend the action in court. The platform rolled out age assurance trials for some users in the UK and Australia last week.

Italy follows France with double-blind method for age assurance

In Europe, regulatory trends are swinging decidedly toward stronger age assurance measures across the board. Italy’s Communications Regulatory Authority (Agcom) has announced a crackdown on age-restricted material online. According to a piece in L’Union Esarda, porn sites and other platforms offering adult content and services will have six months to comply with the so-called Caivano decree.

Arcom’s system leverages independent and certified third party identity verification and age assurance providers. Per the report, “it will also be possible to use dedicated apps, installed on your smartphone or device, such as those linked to digital identity wallets. Through these apps, the user will be able to identify themselves and provide the required proof of age directly to the site or platform.”

This constitutes a so-called “double-blind” system, similar to what has been implemented in France, wherein age assurance providers issue a token for proof of age that contains no other data, and can be used anonymously for age-restricted access without the provider knowing where or for what purpose.

UK takes the harder line; new investigation illustrates why

At least some of the differentiation in approaches to age assurance comes down to broad cultural ideas about risk. Certain segments of the U.S. have consistently demonstrated how they value freedom of choice over government regulation, regardless of public safety concerns. It should come as no surprise that age assurance legislation in America is continually running into the same political roadblocks that face reform on gun laws, the same preference for personal autonomy over collective safety efforts that has enabled the resurgence of measles, and the same distaste for regulation that has led to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration suspending routine food safety checks.

The UK, meanwhile, continues to hew closer to the EU than to the U.S. on most regulatory fronts. Ofcom has gathered to discuss the threats that deepfakes present beyond financial fraud, including an alarming proliferation of “nonconsensual intimate content.” The regulator has noted the serious harm deepfake exploitation content can do to women and girls. It has rolled out the Online Safety Act (OSA) and will soon enact the Protection of Children Codes, and has issued guidelines around “robust, highly effective” age assurance.

And this month, it opened an investigation into the unnamed provider of an online suicide discussion forum, to determine whether it violates the OSA, which classifies intentionally encouraging or assisting the suicide (or attempted suicide) of another person as “priority illegal content.”

The regulator’s notice underlines that it is not messing about when it comes to enforcement. “We have been clear that failure to adequately respond to our request for services to submit a record of their illegal content risk assessment may result in enforcement action and that, as soon as the duties took effect for providers, we would not hesitate to take action where we suspect there may be serious breaches which appears to pose a risk of very significant harm to UK users, and to children in particular,” it says.

Should the platform under investigation be found in violation of the OSA, it could face Ofcom’s full wrath, should the regulator decide to make an example of it. Fines for compliance failures are the greater of £18 million (US$24M) or 10 percent of qualifying worldwide revenue, and Ofcom has the power to “take action to disrupt the business of the provider” in what it deems to be the more serious cases.

Article Topics

age verification  |  Discord  |  Italy  |  Netchoice  |  New Jersey  |  Ohio  |  regulation  |  UK age verification  |  United States  |  Virginia