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Senator Behm proposes ID-based amendment for online age verification; acknowledges litigation risk
Summary
Senator Behm presented an amendment to move from device-based to ID-based age verification in legislation on access to certain online material, quoting the proposed language and noting ID-based approaches are currently involved in litigation in several states.
Senator Behm presented an amendment to a bill (agenda item 02/1980) that replaces device-based age-verification language with ID-based language and described the core proposed requirement to the Senate Industry and Business Committee.
Behm said the amendment’s central provision appears on page 5 and would require an individual attempting to access the material to comply with a commercial age-verification system that may include: use of government-issued identification, a commercially available database regularly used for age or identity verification, or any commercially reasonable method that relies on public or private transactional data to verify the user is at least 18 years old. He told the committee the change is intended to block access at the content level rather than focus on the end-user device.
Behm acknowledged that ID-based verification approaches have been the subject of litigation in other states. He said various states have pursued device-based, app-based and ID-based options and that ID-based statutes are being litigated; he identified Utah and Texas models as reference points and said the matter remains unsettled in the courts. Committee members asked that communications providers and rural telephone co‑ops be given the amendment text for review.
Committee discussion noted technical and legal trade-offs: device-based methods are less mature technically but have seen less litigation to date, while ID-based systems have legal challenges pending. Senator Behm said the intent is to include multiple acceptable verification methods so that industry can choose the approach that fits but added that all methods “have holes” and that including several approaches could better “plug the pipeline.”
No final committee vote was taken on the amendment during the session; several senators asked for the amendment text to be shared with interested communications stakeholders for review before further committee action.
