Utah is the first state in the nation to attempt to ban the use of VPNs — virtual private networks — to get around the state’s age verification law to view online pornography, a move that critics say is unworkable and invasive.
The Legislature, in 2023, enacted a law requiring adult websites to verify the ages of all Utah users in an effort to keep pornography away from minors. But some relied on VPNs, which can provide a user with a new IP address that masks the user’s physical location, as a way around the requirement.
The new law, SB73, which took effect Wednesday, attempts to clamp down on VPN use by tying the age verification to the user’s actual geographic location and requires porn sites to screen out Utahns who are using VPNs.
“I think Utah is really setting the precedent here for other states and other countries,” said Rindala Alajaji, the associate director of state affairs at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that focuses on online speech issues.
“It’s very hard to do and a very unworkable concept, even though folks don’t want people to bypass laws they’ve passed,” she said. “I think a lot of people are eager to see how the enforcement goes.”
Critics, like Alajaji, say Utah’s ban is unworkable because it puts the onus on the company to block the constantly changing VPN and proxy server addresses, making it almost impossible to comply with the Utah mandate.
Read the full article by Robert Gehrke at sltrib.com.
This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.