EFF to Supreme Court: Strike Down Texas’ Unconstitutional Age Verification Law

New Tech Doesn’t Solve Old Problems With Age-Gating the Internet

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WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, and TechFreedom urged the Supreme Court today to strike down HB 1181, a Texas law that unconstitutionally restricts adults’ access to sexual content online by requiring them to verify their age.

Under HB 1181, signed into law last year, any website that Texas decides is composed of “one-third” or more of “sexual material harmful to minors” is forced to collect age-verifying personal information from all visitors. When the Supreme Court reviews a case challenging the law in its next term, its ruling could have major consequences for the freedom of adults to safely and anonymously access protected speech online.

“Texas’ age verification law robs internet users of anonymity, exposes them to privacy and security risks, and blocks some adults entirely from accessing sexual content that’s protected under the First Amendment,” said EFF Staff Attorney Lisa Femia. “Applying longstanding Supreme Court precedents, other courts have consistently held that similar age verification laws are unconstitutional. To protect freedom of speech online, the Supreme Court should clearly reaffirm those correct decisions here.”

In a flawed ruling last year, the Fifth Circuit of Appeals upheld the Texas law, diverging from decades of legal precedent that correctly recognized online ID mandates as imposing greater burdens on our First Amendment rights than in-person age checks. As EFF explains in its friend-of-the-court brief, there is nothing about HB 1181 or advances in technology that have lessened the harms the law’s age verification mandate imposes on adults wishing to exercise their constitutional rights.

First, the Texas law forces adults to submit personal information over the internet to access entire websites, not just specific sexual

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