By a 6-3 vote, SCOTUS upholds age-verification laws for online porn, holding that they are only subject to intermediate

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15. The Impact of Age Verification Measures Goes Beyond Porn Sites

https://kittens.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/impact-age-verification-measures-goes-beyond-porn-sites?language=en

These challenges keep arising because this isn’t just about safety—it’s censorship. Age verification laws target a slew of broadly-defined topics. Some block access to websites that contain some "sexual material harmful to minors," but define the term so loosely that “sexual material” could encompass anything from sex education to R-rated movies; others simply list a variety of vaguely-defined harms. In either instance, lawmakers and regulators could use the laws to target LGBTQ+ content online.

This risk is especially clear given what we already know about platform content policies. These policies, which claim to "protect children" or keep sites “family-friendly,” often label LGBTQ+ content as “adult” or “harmful,” while similar content that doesn't involve the LGBTQ+ community is left untouched. Sometimes, this impact—the censorship of LGBTQ+ content—is implicit, and only becomes clear when the policies (and/or laws) are actually implemented. Other times, this intended impact is explicitly spelled out in the text of the policies and bills.

Age Verification Mandates Would Undermine Anonymity Online

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/age-verification-mandates-would-undermine-anonymity-online

Last year, France’s Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority ordered several sites with adult content to implement age verification. Then France’s National Commission on Informatics and Liberty, CNIL, published a detailed analysis of current age verification methods. It found that no method has the following three important elements: “sufficiently reliable verification, complete coverage of the population, and respect for the protection of individuals' data and privacy and their security.” In short, every age verification method has significant flaws.

Whether it’s called “age assurance,” “age verification,” or “age estimation,” there are only a few ways the technology can work. Verification usually requires a website or its contractor to analyze every user’s private information, like the information on government-issued identification cards. A potential alternative is for the website to communicate with third-party companies like credit agencies, but they are known for often having mistaken information. A third option is age estimation via facial analysis, which is used by Instagram. But such face recognition technology has its own privacy and other problems, including clear evidence that errors abound.

EFF Warns: Online Age Verification Poses Privacy Risks for All Users

https://malware.guide/news/eff-warns-online-age-verification-poses-privacy-risks-for-all-users/

Online age verification systems are surveillance systems that threaten everyone’s privacy and anonymity, according to the American civil rights movement EFF, in response to a law recently passed in Australia that bans social media for people under the age of 16. To enforce the age ban, social media platforms must take “reasonable measures” to verify the age of users. The use of IDs is not permitted, but according to the EFF this is a ‘failed attempt’ to protect privacy. Platforms will therefore fall back on ‘unreliable tools such as biometric scanners’, the civil rights movement adds. In addition, the law does not state to which platforms the ban will apply. An Australian regulator will determine that. “This gives government officials dangerous powers to crack down on services they don’t like, to the detriment of underage and adult users,” the EFF said. The ban won’t take effect for another 12 months, but the EFF fears the law will affect the privacy, anonymity and data security of all Australians. “Banning social media and introducing mandatory age verification checks is the wrong approach to protecting young people online, and this bill has been pushed through the Australian parliament in haste and with little oversight or scrutiny,” the EFF added. This calls on European and American policymakers not to follow such an approach.