Lawsuit aims to block Indiana law on age verification for adult websites
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A lawsuit from a group of plaintiffs with stakes in the adult film industry aims to block a new Indiana law that will require age verification if more than a third of the content is considered “harmful to minors.”
The lawsuit filed Monday says the law violates the Constitution and the 1996 Communications Decency Act. Fred Cate, a distinguished professor at the Indiana University Mauer School of Law, said the lawsuit has standing under those claims.
“The Supreme Court decided more than 25 years ago that you couldn’t require age verification online,” Cate said. “And the reason was simple, and that’s because age verification is really hard to do online.”
Adult film content is protected as free speech under the First Amendment.
Age verification is an expensive process, and the cost burden would likely be on companies and consumers.
“How do you verify age for someone you can’t actually see? Usually, we do that by collecting a lot of information about them,” Cate said.
There are also concerns about these websites having access to personal information.
“Now, we’ve got a big privacy issue,” Cate said. “And interestingly, the state law prohibits you from saving that information but, of course, you have to save it to prove that you did it.”
The suit names Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita because he will have to enforce the law. He shared a statement on social media.
“Children shouldn’t be able to easily access explicit material that can cause them harm. It’s common sense. We need to protect and shield them from the psychological and emotional consequences associated with viewing porn. We look forward to upholding our constitutional duty to defend this law in court.”
Cate and the lawsuit both point out kids could easily get around age verification barriers because they are very computer-literate now.
“We don’t require that everybody else protect kids,” Cate said. “What we require is through schools and community organizations and families, the sense of education and training, that we hope will help kids protect themselves.”
The state law is set to go into effect on July 1. This group is asking for a preliminary injunction so this lawsuit can be settled before the law in enforced.