ONLINE AGE-VERIFICATION: PROTECTING CHILDREN AND PRIVACY
JULY 21, 2023 By: Adam Candeub, Senior Fellow
The State of Utah passed landmark legislation with its Utah Social Media Regulation Act, S.B. 152 (the “Act”), which returns to parents their traditional authority over their children’s education and upbringing by requiring parental permission for minors to open social media accounts. The States of Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and Virginia also subsequently passed similar laws.1
Some of these laws specify acceptable methods of verifying age. Some, like Utah’s, delegate this task to administrative agencies. This white paper examines the legal requirements that authentication methods should satisfy and current verification methods and technologies. In particular, the white paper examines technologies that exploit the features of zero-knowledge proofs. These technologies allow internet users to verify a feature about themselves, such as age, citizenship, or insurance status, without revealing anything else, therefore remaining anonymous.
State authentication regimes will have consequences beyond age verification. The next big thing in internet security will be proof of humanity. As if Blade Runner is coming to life, internet users must prove they are people, not AI. This reality exists as “complete this puzzle to prove you are not a robot.” States now have the opportunity to become the first to create a best-in-class humanity verification regime as an outgrowth of its age verification regime that preserves privacy, respects our values, and promotes the trust needed for a thriving internet ecosystem.
The paper makes four points:
- Legal challengers to age verification laws will likely look to Ashcroft v. ACLU, in which the Supreme Court said the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was unconstitutional, finding that (1) age verification for access to pornographic websites burdens adult speech under the First Amendment and (2) filters are more effective than age verification. However, because Ashcroft involved internet access, not contract or account formation, as do current state age verification laws, it does not control. Further, it stands on certain factual predicates concerning the effectiveness of filters that two decades of online experience debunk. Nevertheless, out of an abundance of legal caution, the states can minimize the risk of overburdening adult speech by allowing numerous age verification methods that let individuals and online firms choose which work best for them.
- States should recommend a non-exclusive list of verification techniques. In the absence of perfect functionality, a reasonable regulatory goal is to raise the cost of circumventing verification with the expectation that increasing the cost of undesirable behavior will decrease its prevalence.
- States, in setting a menu of acceptable methods, should encourage firms to develop age verification techniques that employ zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), a mathematical concept several decades old but only recently applied to online settings, particularly cryptocurrency. As we explain, these and similar techniques, such as digital signatures, offer a high degree of privacy at minimal cost.
- Age verification is but a part of the growing need to authenticate human beings on the internet in the face of ever-growing AI capabilities. Technologies that employ ZKPs and similar techniques, such as digital signatures, offer a privacy-respecting answer to this challenge. States can become leaders by encouraging the development of authentication regimes that rely on ZKP technologies.
Protecting Parents’ Right to Supervise Their Children’s Upbringing While Minimizing Burdens on Adult Speech
Western societies have long understood how literature, music, images, and other cultural materials influence children. Plato asserted in The Republic that music composed in the mixed Lydian mode results in moral weakness, while the Phrygian mode furthers courage among young men. Mirroring Plato’s concern, today’s parents and teachers devote tremendous time and energy to selecting books for school curricula and libraries. Given that books and other media can have either a positive or negative effect, parents have always worked to ensure that children should be exposed to salubrious cultural materials and avoid the hurtful or distracting.
The harms of social media are not strange or improbable as modern readers might consider Plato’s judgment about the mixed Lydian mode.2 Depression, self-harm, suicide attempts, and suicide all increased sharply among U.S. adolescents between 2011 and 2019,3 with similar trends worldwide.4 The increase occurred at the same time that use of social media skyrocketed, becoming a fixed, essential feature in teens’ lives.5 Social media is a prime suspect for the sudden rise in mental health issues among teens.6 This suspicion has been borne out by studies positing a causal role between social media use and decreased emotional well-being.7
The Supreme Court has recognized the importance of respecting and supporting parental authority over what their children see and hear. Parents have the right to educate and protect their children from unwanted cultural influences, a right the Court recognized in Pierce v. Society of Sisters as central to a democratic society. “The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose . . . [is that] the child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”8 The Court later wrote that in “light of [its] extensive precedent, it cannot now be doubted that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.”9
The Court has upheld laws that protect this parental authority in the face of ever more intrusive technologies that make it easier to reproduce and distribute text and images. For instance, in FCC v. Pacifica, the Court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission may regulate the content of radio broadcasts to ensure that children are not exposed to indecent content.10 The FCC’s indecency regulations are still in effect today.11
Similarly, the Supreme Court recognized in Rowan v. U.S. Post Off. Dept.12 that parents have the right to block unwanted solicitations and communications that could harm children. There is no First Amendment right to communicate with children against their parent’s wishes. If parents can prevent a mailer from sending paper solicitations to their kids, consistent with the First Amendment, the state may limit online analogs.
READ FULL ARTICLE : https://americarenewing.com/issues/identity-on-the-internet-protecting-children-and-privacy-and-building-a-proof-of-humanity-regulatory-regime-for-an-ai-driven-internet/
