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Senate amends proposal on age verification to use ID-based system; litigation and industry pushback cited
Summary
Senator Behm presented an amendment to replace device-based age verification with an ID-based commercial verification standard for access to certain online material. Supporters said ID-based verification would shift compliance to content-level controls; opponents and communications stakeholders cautioned about litigation risk and implementation.
Senator Behm presented an amendment to Senate Bill 2380 that replaces device-based age verification language with an ID-based approach requiring a commercial age verification system. He told the Senate Industry and Business Committee the amendment focuses on identity verification rather than device-based methods.
"If you go on page 5 ... it says require an individual attempting to access the material to comply with a commercial age verification system including the use of government issued identification, a commercially available database regularly used by a business or government entity for the purpose of age, identity, verification, or any commercially reasonable method that relies on public or private transactional data to verify the age of the individual attempting to access the information is 18 years of age or older," Behm said while explaining the replacement language.
Behm said the committee previously discussed three verification approaches at the hearing — device-based, app-based and ID-based — and that the ID-based amendment is intended to address the device-based approach’s immaturity. He also cautioned that ID-based schemes are currently the subject of litigation in multiple states.
Committee members urged the bill sponsor to share the amendment text with communications providers and rural telecom cooperatives for feedback; Senator Behm agreed to distribute the language to parties who had testified earlier. Senator Glenn suggested the issue may ultimately require congressional action, saying state-by-state legislation has produced fragmentary results and litigation.
Committee members did not take a final vote on the amendment or the bill. Senators asked staff to circulate the draft amendment to affected industry stakeholders — including communications providers — before the panel next meets.
