In Louisiana, porn sites have to ask users for identification

It’s called HB 142 and it’s a recent law approved by the House of Representatives of the US state of Louisiana: it provides for a strict identity verification for access to pornographic sites. On closer inspection, there is a specific formula – and a bit curious, to be honest – to establish which platforms must carry out the identification: the sites made up of the 33.3% of R-rated content. Almost as if to say that a little porn is good, not too much.

We are obviously talking about platforms such as Pornhub, Youporn and Redtube which in fact have already begun to implement the new law, or others such as XVideos which still would not be aligned. In the first case, for example, AllpassTrust is used, a system that allows identity verification by crossing the data present in the LA Wallet, an application (here it is) that allows the acquisition of an identity card or driving license with value legal. That is, to be used to be identified in the event of a check in the car or to buy goods prohibited under the age of 18 in bars, shops and restaurants.

This is one of the first cases of identity verification for logging into platforms of this kind in the United States. And also in Western countries: only the United Kingdom is very close to something similar which, however, it has been discussing without fruit for years. The latest version of the law, first called AgeID and then the Online Safety Bill, is still under discussion in the House of Commons and rapid approval is not expected, despite various attempts starting from 2019.

Louisiana’s measure promptly relieved quite a few questions about the ability to guarantee privacy of citizens. The law, approved last year and precisely set to enter into force on January 1st, is not an isolated fact: as he explains The Vergeis actually the spearhead of a new, aggressive children’s online safety campaign which has invested several other US states. Some have even declared pornography a critical public health issue, and action has been taken in many cases, albeit largely symbolic and wholly unnecessary. Like yet another warning required in Utah before accessing pornographic sites. A similar law passed last August in California, but not yet implemented, has also fueled fears that this type of verification could also be required for access to non-pornographic sites. Utah’s Republican Senator, 51-year-old Mike Lee, finally introduced a bill that would essentially expand the Louisiana system to all states, making it a federal law. And significantly changing the prospects for various other democratic systems in the world.

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In this way, however, it will be known how, when and how much users access pornographic content. And on this point the reassurances of Envoc, the company that created and manages LA Wallet, certainly do not seem to be enough, according to which (a spokesperson explained to the local Wafb station some time ago), the group will not retain or store any information about users: the system “does not identify your date of birth, who you are, where you live, what part of the state you are in, or any information from your device or ID. It verifies the age just to figure out if the person is old enough to log in,” project manager Sarah Kelley said. digital copy accepted in the state as an official identification method.

The problem is always the same and it is twofold. On the one hand, you have to trust a third party who manipulates and manages the information, in this case the specific tracking of your online activity. On the other mechanisms of this kind benefit the large platforms owned by giants in the sector because they can easily implement these systems, to the detriment of smaller sites (regardless of the pornography theme of course). It is no coincidence that, for the moment, this type of verification and the security of one’s privacy are not in fact compatible: last year the Cnilthe Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés i.e. the French privacy guarantor has ruled that “there is no solution” for proper age verification that guarantees confidentiality and a number of other standards. Some social networks, for various purposes, have recently begun to rely on artificial intelligence analyses, but even that – especially when it works on facial recognition – does not seem risk-free.

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