A Utah age verification law targeting VPN users goes into effect this week

Age verification is an especially hot topic in the US right now. A California law will go into effect next year that requires operating systems to verify the user’s age at account setup and the “Parents Decide Act” may introduce similar requirements to the entire nation. There are well-documented concerns from experts about the form age verification is taking right now, but put those aside for a moment, because Utah has some ideas of its own on how to tackle all this.

Enter Senate Bill 73, the state’s Online Age Verification Amendments legislature. It goes into effect May 6, and will make Utah the first US state with age verification laws that specifically target VPN use. Websites with “a substantial portion of material harmful to minors” will be required to check users’ ages, and the site is still on the hook if users get around it with a VPN.