Age-verification laws don’t keep minors off adult sites, study suggests

In March, a working paper from researchers at NYU and other universities suggested that age-verification laws are ineffective. Now, a new analysis not only supports the same conclusion but also suggests that these laws may burden adults’ First Amendment rights.

A new study by the Phoenix Center, a public policy nonprofit, finds these laws should fail the constitutional cost-benefit test. Meaning, if the laws are ineffective, the costs to adults’ constitutional rights to view legal content may outweigh the benefits of preventing minors from viewing it.

Age-verification laws in the United States and beyond generally require websites that host a decent amount of explicit content to verify visitors’ age with more than a “yes or no” checkbox—such as with a scan of their government ID or facial recognition. But, especially with the introduction of the United Kingdom’s age-verification law over the summer, some non-obvious platforms like YouTube are also starting to enforce age checks.

Experts have long told Mashable that these laws will not serve their intended purpose of keeping minors away from pornographic websites. Software such as VPNs can bypass them, and users can easily visit websites that do not comply with the laws. There are also privacy and security concerns associated with these laws, such as the inability to browse legal content anonymously and inputting personal data into third-party systems that may be vulnerable to hacking.

Nevertheless, lawmakers have introduced and passed age verification laws in many states and countries. And since the initial release of the working paper in March this year, the Supreme Court has ruled age verification laws are constitutional, despite concerns that they stifle free speech and thereby violate the First Amendment.

Costs and benefits of age verification

The Phoenix Center’s cost-benefit analysis is important because of the recent SCOTUS decision. In June, a majority of the court decided that Texas’s age-verification law was subject to the “intermediate scrutiny” standard. As the study outlines, the Supreme Court held that “the Texas age-verification law served an important government interest and that age-verification was substantially related to achieving that purpose.”

The Phoenix Center’s chief economist, Dr. George S. Ford studied and argued that age-verification laws should restrict minors to a greater extent than adults in order to maintain this standard.

They used Google Trends data before and after states enacted their laws and/or Pornhub blocked itself in these states. They found that searches for “VPN” (increased by 47 percent the week of Pornhub’s removal from the state, which continued for about 20 weeks) and “free porn” (increased by 30 percent with no significant decline) increased.

And while Google doesn’t deny whether it’s searching for adults or minors, other research has found that teens aged 13-18 are less likely to know how to use VPNs or to easily adopt them. This shows that users, including minors, simply circumvent the laws.

“The evidence suggests a regulatory regime where the intended targets – tech-savvy minors – can easily bypass restrictions, while adults exercising constitutional rights bear the primary costs,” Ford said in the press release.

In the study, Ford also pointed out the cybersecurity risks of using a free VPN, such as increased susceptibility to ransomware incidents, IP leaks, and third-party tracking.

While more research remains to be done, Ford wrote in the study that the effectiveness of age verification laws in protecting minors is “questionable”, because savvy teenagers may find ways to circumvent them and because of the cost of hindering adults’ First Amendment rights.

In the press release he continued, “When a policy’s burden on protected speech significantly exceeds its effectiveness in achieving its stated purpose, it fails the constitutional requirement to be ‘substantially related’ to that purpose, no matter how important the purpose.” “Add to this the cybersecurity risks and degradation of Internet infrastructure, and we have a clear case where the costs outweigh the benefits.”