COUNTERPOINT | Age verification bill will not keep your kids safer, will risk privacy

Guest column by Samantha Chapman, ACLU of South Dakota advocacy manager

The internet can feel like the wild west, a place where people of all ages, including children, are just a few clicks away from encountering explicit content. Given this digital landscape, it is understandable that parents want to shield their kids from materials intended for adults.  

But House Bill 1257, a bill aimed at limiting minors’ access to online content, would ultimately violate the constitutional rights of adult South Dakotans.

POINT: South Dakota senators failed to protect children from pornography

This bill stipulates that any website that displays “material harmful to minors,” is required to use an age verification method to guarantee only adults are accessing the website. If the website fails to do so, the parents of a child harmed by the website’s content can sue for damages. A Senate committee killed the bill, but backers of the legislation are trying to convince enough senators to revive it during the final days of the 2024 Legislative Session.

RELATED: South Dakota lawmakers want to make it harder to watch porn on the internet

Minors can still access adult content

The only way that a website can determine whether a user is located in a particular state is to use the geolocation data provided by the user’s device. It is extremely simple to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to make it appear as though a user is located elsewhere, thereby evading age checks. In fact, a recent study of middle schoolers ages 11 to 14 found that 41 percent of them use a VPN to browse the internet. Kids can easily circumvent the proposed age verification requirements.