The Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act sounds like it’s all about protecting kids from bad things on the internet. In truth, this mishmash of over a dozen privacy-invasive, censorship-friendly requirements and regulations could actually put children — and all internet users — at risk.
The package, which includes a revised version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), passed the House on June 29 and is now being considered in the Senate. If enacted, it will incentivize platforms to require all users — adults and minors alike — to hand over personal information that links their offline identity to their online activity.
That’s because many different sections of the bill require online providers to establish and enforce policies to prevent children and teenagers from accessing certain types of broadly defined content. Violators can face significant legal action by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general.
To attempt to steer clear of trouble, websites and social media platforms may decide to age-gate all users — that is, verify, guess, or estimate users’ ages.
This will effectively create a new mass surveillance system. Whatever you may think about the state of privacy protections in the U.S., your current online usage is not necessarily linked to your specific identity. If this bill passes, that will likely change.
The fact that lawmakers are even contemplating a bill that would create a surveillance and censorship regime should be a wake-up call for everyone who values privacy and free expression.
This is a privacy pitfall, not just some benign form of digital “carding.” If the bill passes, the bouncer at the door will now be an online entity that will electronically capture your personal information and save it to a database for an unspecified amount of time. Providing this identifying information would be the price that any user must pay to access legal, First Amendment-protected content on the internet or to communicate with others online.
On top of that, once you turn your personal information over, it’s now vulnerable to leaks, data theft, or misuse. This isn’t just a hypothetical: We’ve already seen several breaches of age verification providers.
The KIDS Act contains multiple sections that will lead to age-gating. For example, a provision in the SAFE BOTS Act section mandates that if a service “knows or should have known” that a user is underage, it can’t offer certain chatbot features. The SCREEN Act section requires hosts of sexually explicit content to figure out if users are “more likely than not” underage beforeletting them access certain content.
In this bill, platforms are liable for ensuring kids and teenagers are walled off from content targeted by the KIDS Act, but the consequences of this liability don’t just affect minors. It means platforms will be pressured to make adults prove they are adults, underscoring how this legislation will make everyone’s online experience less private.
It will also push online services to create moderation policies against lawful speech to wall off content some legislators believe is harmful to minors. But as we’ve seen many times in the past, while lawmakers may be clear in the debate about what they intend with these restrictions, platforms are notoriously bad about separating discussions about harmful activities from discussions about getting help for harmful activities.
For example, let’s say a 15-year-old expresses concern about a friend’s drinking or 13-year-old seeks information about how to get his parent to stop smoking. These individuals would be engaging in perfectly lawful speech about topics the KIDS Act has labeled as harmful. Those posts aren’t intended to be banned under the bill, but if platforms are supposed to prevent minors from accessing content about alcoholism or cigarette smoking, many will adopt practicesthat either remove those topics entirely or restrict them to adult-only spaces. We know from experience that the threat of legal action pushes platforms and content providers to over-remove or restrict content.
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