Publications
How California failed to act to protect children from porn
We recently had to withdraw our support from AB 3080 as a result of an Amendment accepted by the California Senate's Judiciary Committee. We had already given evidence in person as expert witnesses proposing the Bill to both the Assembly Privacy and Consumer...
Virtual Private Networks
We often hear the argument that age verification is pointless because "Kids will just use VPNs". That's not a valid argument, given how the relevant laws are drafted, and indeed, may lead adult sites into a false sense of security if they think the use of a VPN...
AVPA gives evidence to Utah Senate Business and Labor Committee
On Wednesday 14th February, we were invited to addres the Utah Senate Business and Labor Committee which is considering a revision to the State's existing laws designed to protect minors from the harms presented by the use of social media. It was the longest hearing...
AVPA responses to Ireland’s Coimisiún na Meán
We responded to a consultation on the new Online Safety Code proposed by the Coimisiún na Meán, Ireland new online regulator. We shared our views that: The Coimisiún should be careful it does not imply that smaller sites are exempt from taking action to protect...
Panel discusson at the Internext Expo / AVN convention
We joined a panel discussing age verification at the Internext-Expo conference, taking place in parallel with the AVN show in Las Vegas. Also speaking were Corey D. Silverstein and Larry Walters, well known lawyers specialising in this field, and Mark Bauman of...
Alternatives to AV – Filtering Software
Since the case of Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 542 U.S. 656 (2004) was decided by the US Supreme Court, with a 6-3 majority agreeing that the Child Online Protection Act (1998) did not pass the strict scrutiny test used to judge obscenity cases,...
Alternatives to AV – App stores age restrictions
There has been a lively debate about the potential to use app stores to impose age restrictions. For example, a new data protection law in India requires users to be 18+ to give consent for their personal data to be shared, so there is a ubiquitous need for online...
Lessons for US Legislators considering age verification
Last year, we helped to provide expert witness testimony for US federal courts considering whether various state laws requiring age verification, be that for pornography, social media or age-appropriate design, were constitutional. The arguments heard in court, and...
What’s on our “AV Radar” in 2024
With so much going on in the world of age verification, it is easy to overlook a topic you might wish to keep an eye on. So we maintain this graphical reminder of what we're tracking, in the form of our AVPA Radar.
2024: The year age assurance comes of age.
As we begin the second century in which society has imposed age restrictions to protect children from harm - it was in 1923 that the UK Parliament passed the “Intoxicating Liquor (Sale to Persons under Eighteen) Act” – the AVPA predicts 2024 will be the year we,...
A technical response to Professor Eric Goldman and Dr Adrian Moore
In a widely syndicated article, entitled "The many ways that California’s online age-verification law is unconstitutional", Professor Eric Goldman and Dr Adrian Moore demonstrate that they are either unaware of, or choose to ignore, the state of the art in online age...