Texas’s Online Age-Verification Law Must Be Overturned

Lilian Coral, head of New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI) and Prem Trivedi, policy director of Open Technology Institute, wrote an op-ed published by Project Syndicate on the need for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a Texas law requiring age verification for access to certain amount of adult content online.

Because it is currently impossible to verify the age of internet users while also protecting their data and identifying information, such a requirement would amplify privacy and security risks, including for children. As New America’s Open Technology Institute (where we both work) and other public-interest advocates argued late last year in an amicus brief, the Supreme Court must overturn this law on appeal.

We found that even when laws prohibit websites from saving users’ personal information, the act of verifying their age makes this kind of sensitive data more vulnerable to unauthorized access. For example, online platforms that confirm users’ ages through government-issued IDs or credit-card details may lack secure processes for collecting, using, storing, and deleting such information.