SALT LAKE CITY — A new law in Utah comes into force Wednesday, making adult websites liable if minors in the state circumvent geolocation efforts to bypass age verification.
As XBIZ reported in March, when Utah's SB 73 was signed into law, the bill updates investigation and enforcement rules for age verification and imposes an excise tax of 2% on adult sites operating in the state.
The new tax does not take effect until Oct. 1, but the legislation’s new VPN rule takes effect Wednesday.
That provision states: “An individual is considered to be accessing the website from this state if the individual is actually located in the state, regardless of whether the individual is using a virtual private network, proxy server, or other means to disguise or misrepresent the individual’s geographic location to make it appear that the individual is accessing a website from a location outside this state.”
An Emerging Legislative/Legal Trend
The VPN provision reflects growing concern about the widespread use of techniques to circumvent age verification, which has inspired both state and federal efforts to close that practical loophole.
In Ohio, a bill titled the “Innocence Act” would require adult sites to “utilize a geofence system maintained and monitored by a licensed location-based technology provider” to dynamically monitor a user’s physical location and ascertain whether the user is located in the state, and thereby subject to age verification.
Meanwhile, in Washington, the proposed Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act, which would make age verification by adult websites federal law, includes a provision requiring sites to take “reasonable measures” to address circumvention of age verification.
Finally, as XBIZ reported in March, the state of Indiana is suing Aylo, alleging that the company and its affiliates have violated the state’s AV law by failing to prevent access by users using virtual private networks to avoid geolocation — even though Indiana law does not specify a duty to account for intentional circumvention of geoblocking.
The VPN language in SB 73 could similarly impact enforcement of Utah’s existing age verification law and/or lead to further legal tests of whether sites can be held accountable for access by users who circumvent geoblocking.
