BISMARCK, N.D. — A North Dakota state senator who sponsored a device-based age verification bill that Free Speech Coalition (FSC) endorsed is now seeking to amend the bill to require site-based age verification instead.
The change will make SB 2380 into yet another copycat version of the age verification bills being promoted around the country by religious conservative activists.
As originally introduced, the bill would have required manufacturers of internet-enabled devices and operating systems to determine the age of a device’s primary user and signal websites whether that user is a minor.
At the time, FSC Executive Director Alison Boden praised that version of the bill as a “common-sense solution to age-verification that protects adults and children alike.”
In a statement, FSC noted that device-based age-verification protects consumer privacy and cannot be circumvented using workarounds like VPNs.
Earlier this week, the North Dakota Senate Industry and Business Committee held a hearing during which it heard public testimony for and against the device-based AV bill. Testimony in favor came from a range of groups including the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children and North Dakota Family Alliance Legislative Action, while those in opposition included NetChoice, the BroadBand Association of North Dakota and the App Association.
Carissa Swenson of the BroadBand Association of North Dakota told the committee that “the best thing” would be to require adult sites to implement age verification.
“Because it’s working,” she told the committee. “It’s working in 19 other states. Put the onus on them. They’re the ones who need to make sure that you’re of age in order to view those sites.”
On Wednesday, Republican state Senator Keith Boehm, who sponsored the bill, told the committee that he plans to amend the bill to require site-based age verification instead of device-based AV, citing Utah and Texas as models.
“We received a lot of pushback on the device-based because that technology is not mature yet,” he told the committee.
Noting that site-based AV laws in other states have led to lawsuits, Boehm explained, “The reason we went with the device-based is because that is not in litigation, and we actually had the infamous Free Speech Coalition say that it wasn’t going to get litigated. But it’s a bridge too far at this point.”
Boehm also joined other proponents of the current spate of state AV laws in asserting that the fact that adult sites have blocked access in states with such laws indicates that the laws are effective — a contention predicated on the assumption that the goal is to ban adult content for all, rather than prevent minors from accessing it.
“It’s been effective,” Boehm said. “Wherever ID-based has been introduced, that industry is backing out.”