Wisconsin governor says ‘no’ to age checks for porn

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers vetoed a bill requiring residents to verify their age before accessing porn sites. I mentioned it earlier before 404 media. in Message to members of the association Last week, Evers wrote that the bill “imposes an intrusive burden on adults trying to access constitutionally protected materials.”

The bill (AB 105) would have required sites with more than a third of their total content deemed harmful to minors to impose a “reasonable” form of age verification, such as requiring users to show their government-issued ID. More than twenty countries It has already passed similar age verification requirements to access adult content, including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Texas and Virginia. As a result, Pornhub Her website has been blocked on these sites.

last month, The ACLU of Wisconsin testified That AB-105 “raises significant concerns about privacy, surveillance, and the First Amendment,” and Governor Evers seemed to agree. “I object to this bill in its entirety because I object to this bill’s intrusion into the personal privacy of Wisconsin residents,” Evers wrote, adding that he is “concerned about data security and the potential for misuse of personally identifiable information” obtained as a result of the age verification process.

An early version of Wisconsin’s age verification bill also included a ban on virtual private networks (VPNs), which people use to circumvent online age verifications. Legislators This ruling was dropped In February, anyway VPNs have become a target For regulators around the world.

Although he vetoed this bill, Evers leaves the door open for other types of age verification solutions, such as “device-based” methods that would verify users’ age on their phones or computers.