By Michael McGrady Jr.
HARRISBURG, Penn.—State lawmakers in Pennsylvania are considering a proposed age verification law that explicitly targets adult entertainment websites in a bid to protect minors from seeing age-restricted content, according to local reports.
The Pennsylvania Capital-Star reported Monday that the state Senate Judiciary Committee voted earlier this week to advance Senate Bill (SB) 603 with limited bipartisan backing. If adopted and signed into law by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, SB 603 would require state residents to provide proof of age, such as a state-issued identification card, when accessing websites with at least one-third of material consisting of adult content. Republican state Sen. Cris Dush of the community of Jefferson is the bill's lead sponsor, and he touts it as a key move to hold large technology companies accountable.
“When it comes to the protection of children from exposure to pornography, the only verification measure, if any, is clicking a button indicating you’re 18 years old,” argued Sen. Dush during the Monday committee hearing. “Why should we not protect our kids from pornography websites the same way we protect them from online gambling?”
Note that stakeholders and civil society groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Pennsylvania, have come out in opposition to the bill, citing claims of censorship and data privacy concerns. According to the current form of the bill, the proposal classifies a "reasonable age verification method" as any means of verification "through an independent, third-party age verification service that compares the personal information entered by the individual who is seeking access to the material that is available from a commercially available database or aggregate of databases that is regularly used by government agencies and businesses for age and identity verification."
Currently, the legislation needs to be considered by the entire Senate before it advances. Previous attempts to implement age verification in Pennsylvania have fallen short due to similar complaints of civil liberties and privacy rights being harmed.
State Sen. Maria Collett, a Democrat representing the community of Montgomery, was one of two lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote against the bill. While she stated that she supported the sentiment of the legislation, the bill's lack of specifics for data privacy protections is a red flag. She said, "I think with the proliferation of Flock cameras, Ring cameras, and people sort of being online all the time no matter what, our data is increasingly not becoming our own."
Mike Stabile, director of public policy of the adult industry trade association, the Free Speech Coalition (FSC), expressed sentiments similar to those of Sen. Collett and opponents.
"We’ve been engaged in Pennsylvania for some time, and working to educate lawmakers on device-based solutions," Stabile told AVN. "The last-minute vote on Monday on a previously stalled bill appears to be more about election-year politics than actual policy. Still, we are working with allies in Pennsylvania and beyond to push back on this and other ineffective and dangerous legislation."
Lawrence Walters, an attorney representing adult industry clients, told AVN that he views the Pennsylvania bill as problematic since similar bills have been adopted in other states featuring severe private rights to action. SB 603 establishes a so-called "bounty" provision, similar to what was seen in states such as Utah. This bounty law requires enforcement through a private right of action, which would require every website that is covered by the bill and is found in violation to be subject to scrutiny from parties like parents.
"SB 603 is another age-gating bill sold as child protection," Walters said. "What it actually does is force adults to hand over private personal data to access lawful speech. That is a First Amendment problem, not a technical upgrade."
Walters continued, "The private right of action makes the bill worse. Every site that might be covered faces bounty-hunter litigation. Over-blocking will be the rational response."
"If lawmakers want to help parents, fund filters and enforce existing dissemination-to-minors laws," he said. "Do not conscript every adult site into an identification system and then act surprised when the data leaks."
Corey Silverstein, another attorney representing adult industry clients, expressed his alarm squarely on the potential harm in attempting to protect minors but at the expense of free speech.
"The adult industry has repeatedly made clear that protecting minors from inappropriate content is a legitimate and important objective," Silverstein said. "The real question is whether a particular law accomplishes that objective without unnecessarily burdening adults’ access to constitutionally protected expression or creating unacceptable privacy and data-security risks."
"This is another example of the increasingly fragmented state-by-state regulatory environment that online adult businesses are being forced to navigate," Silverstein added.
Fuente: avn.com
