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A Republican-backed proposal to require Arizonans to prove they are at least 18 years old before accessing online pornography moved forward Wednesday morning.
That verification could be done either by submitting a government-issued ID to the website operator or using an age-verification system that relies on private “transactional data.”
The bill, run by freshman Republican lawmaker Nick Kupper, R-Surprise, is similar to legislation Republicans have pushed in previous years that failed to gain support due to constitutional concerns.
Kupper’s House Bill 2112 is also similar to efforts seen in other states, such as Louisiana and Texas, and he cited Texas’ law as the inspiration for his legislation.
Lobbyists representing the adult entertainment industry and the American Civil Liberties Union voiced concerns that the bill’s language could loop in non-pornographic material and would do little to prevent children from seeing pornographic content.
“There is a giant internet. There is social media, there are websites that are outside the compliance of the United States that have grown exponentially,” Mike Stabile, director of public policy for the Free Speech Coalition, a trade organization that represents the adult entertainment industry, told the House Judiciary Committee.
The result of laws in states that have already implemented similar laws, Stabile said, is that traffic has moved away from sites that aim to comply to illegal sites that often are hosted outside of the United States — and sometimes host illegal content, such as child pornography.
Stabile said that the industry has been advocating for device-level solutions that are also backed by organizations such as the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which has also voiced concerns with laws like the one Kupper has proposed.
But Kupper disagreed, saying that device-level age verification methods “puts the onus on the parent” and isn’t as good as his “one size fits all” approach.
“We are seeing a game of Whac-a-Mole,” Stabile said of states that have implemented age verification. Website operators are working to block IP addresses in those states, though the use of virtual private networks have soared in states where these laws are implemented and more illicit sites are growing in popularity.
“So, it really isn’t doing anything to protect minors,” he explained.
Kupper refuted that assessment and said that an “entrepreneurial” minor could likely get around the age verification system, though he doubted that it would happen.
“The vast majority of minors are not going to be computer geniuses and get around this,” Kupper said.
But advocates were concerned about more than just how kids might bypass the law.
Marilyn Rodriguez, a lobbyist representing the ACLU, said the bill is tantamount to “government censorship” and could lead to minors being blocked from accessing sites that have information about sex, but aren’t pornographic. Rodriguez said websites dedicated to HIV/AIDS, sex education and the LGBTQ community could face challenges under the law.
The first draft of the bill required the attorney general to investigate instances of the law being broken, but an amendment removed that language and instead allows for private citizens to bring a claim to court for violations.
The ACLU also voiced concerns over privacy, which Republicans on the panel tried to address by amending it to say that websites cannot keep the data or allow it to be transmitted to any government body.
This isn’t Arizona’s first time trying to change state law to keep juveniles from accessing online pornography. In 2000, lawmakers extended the “harmful to minors” statute to include the internet, but it was later struck down as unconstitutional.
“My wife and I, we have parental rights to their devices. We oversee their devices,” Rep. Lupe Contreras, D-Cashion, said of his kids’ access to the internet when voting no on the bill. “I would hope that most would do that.”
The bill passed out of the committee along party lines, with Republicans voting in favor and Democrats opposing. The bill heads next to the full House of Representatives for consideration.
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