CDT, in coalition with New America’s Open Technology Institute, The Internet Society, Professor Daniel Weitzner, Professor Eran Tomer, and Professor Sarah Scheffler, has filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court with the assistance of Keker, Van Nest & Peters in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton. This case involves a challenge to a Texas law that requires websites and online services hosting a certain percentage of “sexual material harmful to minors” to verify the age of their visitors and prevent minors from accessing their sites. After the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated an injunction preventing the law from going into effect, Free Speech Coalition appealed to the Supreme Court.
In their amicus brief supporting Free Speech Coalition, CDT and its partners describe various current methods of age verification that would satisfy the requirements of the Texas statute. They note how these methods purport to work and highlight their inaccuracies; potential for circumvention; privacy and security risks; and inaccessibility for certain groups including undocumented immigrants, unbanked individuals, people with disabilities, and others who lack access to government IDs or are commonly misidentified by biometric technology.
The brief explains that these shortcomings in available age verification methods have constitutional implications because they will prevent adults from accessing constitutionally protected speech and fail to protect children effectively. Children may still access restricted content either by circumventing these technologies or due to error rates in age estimation technologies not trained on young faces. Additionally, current age verification methods pose increased risks to privacy and security online, potentially affecting broader internet use.
For these reasons, CDT believes that the Texas statute is unconstitutional and should not be enforced.
Read the full brief here.
