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MADISON, Wisc. — Gov. Tony Evers on Friday vetoed AB 105, an age verification bill that would have allowed individuals to sue adult content providers for alleged failures to verify users’ ages, with penalties of up to $10,000 per violation.
In a letter to the state Assembly, Evers said he vetoed the bill due to concerns about its impact on personal privacy, citing issues commonly raised by privacy advocates.
“While I agree that we should protect children from harmful material, this bill imposes an intrusive burden on adults who are trying to access constitutionally protected materials,” Evers writes. “The bill requires all users, regardless of age, who are attempting to access certain websites to turn over sensitive, personally identifiable information. While the bill does not allow a person who verifies an individual’s age to retain identifying information, nothing in the bill prohibits the transmission of such information to a third party such as a data broker or the government. This is a violation of personal privacy.
“Additionally, I am concerned about data security and the potential for misuse of personally identifiable information,” the statement continues. “Identifiable information could be intercepted by or transmitted to a third party and used as the basis for blackmail or identity theft. Further, although the bill includes penalties for a business entity who violates the prohibition on retention of personal information, those penalties cannot undo the harm that may occur to an individual who is the victim of actions like blackmail or identity theft as a result of a bad actor obtaining their identity.”
Earlier versions of the bill included a requirement that websites block virtual private network traffic, but that provision was removed during the amendment process.
The final version of the bill also included language stating that “sovereign immunity” could not be used as a defense for failure to implement age verification. The purpose of that provision is unclear in this context, as the term typically applies to governments rather than private entities.
As industry attorney Lawrence Walters said, “Sovereign immunity is raised as an affirmative defense by a state, not a private company.”
The provision may have been intended to address jurisdictional challenges. In February, a federal judge dismissed lawsuits against two adult websites in Kansas over alleged violations of that state’s age verification law, finding that the plaintiff had not demonstrated that the sites specifically targeted Kansas users. An amended complaint in a separate, ongoing case seeks to establish jurisdiction by arguing that the adult site SuperPorn intentionally targeted residents of the state.
