Kristian Stout on App-Store Age Verification
ICLE Director of Innovation Policy Kristian Stout was quoted by Reason in a story about Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-Utah) age-verification bill. You can read the full piece here.
“One of the most significant concerns about age-verification mandates is their potential to abet privacy breaches and magnify data-security risks,” notes Kristian Stout at Truth on the Market…
Stout also notes that there are constitutional concerns with banning minors from using app stores entirely just because some portion of content therein might be inappropriate.
“This kind of proposal is…rooted in the idea of comparing app providers to bars and taverns, a comparison that courts have explicitly rejected. Just as it would be unconstitutional to ban minors from entering a shopping mall on the grounds that one of the mall’s stores sells alcohol, it is similarly problematic to restrict access to entire digital platforms or app stores due to the presence of some potentially inappropriate content.”