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Privacy advocate urges pairing Vermont Age Appropriate Design Code with baseline privacy law, warns of age‑verification legal risks
Summary
Bailey Sanchez of the Future of Privacy Forum told the Senate Institutions committee that Vermont should consider S.71 — a baseline consumer privacy law — alongside the Age Appropriate Design Code and cautioned that broad age‑verification mandates and content‑focused risk assessments have faced court challenges.
Bailey Sanchez, deputy director for U.S. legislation at the Future of Privacy Forum, told the Senate Institutions committee that Vermont should pair any Age Appropriate Design Code with a strong baseline consumer privacy law and be cautious about broad age‑verification requirements that courts have scrutinized.
Sanchez said a comprehensive privacy bill such as S.71 would supply baseline protections for all Vermonters and provide particular safeguards for minors, including classifying minor data as more sensitive and restricting sales and targeted advertising. “I encourage this committee to keep the full range of services and scope of the bill in mind as you further consider the proposal,” she told senators, noting that AADC’s reach extends beyond social media to many online services.
Sanchez reviewed litigation trends in other states. She highlighted that courts have closely scrutinized laws that require companies to assess or restrict content and that age verification has been a repeated legal flash point. The Ninth Circuit’s decision in NetChoice v. Bonta, she said, affirmed a preliminary injunction preventing California’s content‑focused risk assessments from taking effect because the court viewed that requirement as asking companies to opine about content and content harms. Sanchez noted that risk assessments aimed at data‑use practices (as distinct from content judgments) can be a legitimate privacy tool, but she warned lawmakers to be precise about what the state would require.
Sanchez urged clarity about whether the Vermont bill would require companies to perform age verification, and, if so, at what level of assurance. She praised safeguards already in the draft — including an appeal process for age designations and prohibitions on repurposing age‑verification data — but said the committee should adopt precise, narrowly tailored standards because broad, across‑the‑board age verification imposes costs on all users and raises constitutional questions.
Ending — next steps for lawmakers
Sanchez offered to provide additional materials and asked the committee to weigh the interplay between a targeted AADC and a broader privacy law such as S.71, saying the two are complementary: a baseline privacy framework can reduce many data‑use risks to young people while the AADC can address design or feature‑level safeguards.
