Whether and to what extent an age assurance mechanism chills adults’ speech depends on the specific requirements of the law and the ii technical, legal, and social context at the time of the challenge ..................................... [...] Whether and to what extent an age assur- ance mechanism chills adults’ speech de- pends on the specific requirements of the law and the technical, legal, and social context at the time of the challenge. [...] Many third-party vendors perform this service, not by transmitting information to the government, but by extracting the date of birth from the government ID and then comparing the photo on the ID to a selfie that the user provides in real-time. [...] The more sensitive personal information a company collects, the higher the risk to users’ privacy, and the more likely users are to think twice about providing 19 the information. [...] Tools that use cryptographic techniques to com- municate whether a user is an adult or a kid to the website they seek to access without providing the web- site with any additional information about the user— a “zero knowledge proof”—also minimize privacy risks and enhance user trust by ensuring that neither the website nor the age assurance vendor can link the us- ers’ identity to their internet a.
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Table of Contents
- No. 23-1122 1
- I T 1
- F S C . 1
- Petitioners 1
- K P I H O C A A 1
- G F T S O T 1
- Respondent. 1
- On Writ of Certiorari to the U.S. Court of Appeals 1
- BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE 1
- ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER 1
- IN SUPPORT OF NEITHER PARTY 1
- A B Counsel of Record M I T M B S B E P I C EPIC 1519 New Hampshire Avenue NW Washington DC 20036 202 483-1140 butlerepic.org 1
- September 23 2024 1
- TABLE OF CONTENTS 2
- TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ........................................ iv 2
- INTEREST OF THE AMICUS CURIAE .................... 1 2
- SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT ............................. 2 2
- ARGUMENT ................................................................. 4 2
- I. The nature of the constitutional challenge in this case is fundamentally different than in the Courts precedent ......................... 4 2
- A. Laws that involve age assurance 2
- B. The Courts offline age assurance 2
- C. The Courts cases about adult 2
- II. Whether and to what extent an age 2
- A. In a facial challenge courts must 3
- B. Courts must analyze the privacy 3
- C. Courts must analyze the user 3
- D. The baseline for measuring any 3
- III. The Court should leave open the 3
- A. Some content-neutral laws aimed 3
- B. Lower courts need the aid of a 3
- CONCLUSION ........................................................... 31 4
- TABLE OF AUTHORITIES 5
- ACLU v. Reno 5
- 31 F. Supp. 2d 473 E.D. Pa. 1999 ........................ 12 5
- Ashcroft v. ACLU 5
- 542 U.S. 656 2004 ......................................... 2 5 12 5
- Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association 5
- 564 U.S. 786 2011 ................................................... 8 5
- Ginsberg v. New York 5
- 390 U.S. 629 1968 ................................................... 7 5
- Moody v. NetChoice LLC 5
- 144 S. Ct. 2383 2024 ....................................... 13 24 5
- NetChoice LLC v. Griffin 5
- No. 523-CV-05105 2023 WL 5660155 W.D. Ark. Aug. 31 2023 ................................................. 30 5
- Reno v. ACLU 5
- 521 U.S. 844 1997 ....................................... 2 10 11 5
- Sable Commcns of California Inc. v. FCC 5
- 492 U.S. 115 1989 ................................................... 9 5
- United States v. Playboy Ent. Grp. Inc. 5
- 529 U.S. 803 2000 ................................................... 9 5
- California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act 5
- Cal. Civ. Code 1798.99.2840 5
- Cal. Civ. Code 1798.99.31b3 ........................... 27 5
- Cal. Civ. Code 1798.99.31a5 ..................... 14 27 5
- Cal. Civ. Code 1798.99.31b8 ..................... 14 27 5
- Maryland Kids Code H.B. 603 2023 Leg. 446 6
- Sess. Md. 2024 to be codified at Md. Code Ann. Com. Law. 14-4604 14-4604A8 C West 2024 ...................................................... 27 6
- Lawful Internet Gaming Act Mich. Comp. Laws 6
- 432.307c 2019 .................................................. 22 6
- New York SAFE for Kids Act N.Y. Gen. Bus. 6
- Law 15001508 6
- N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law 15011 McKinney 6
- 2024 ........................................................................ 27 6
- N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law 15013 McKinney 6
- 2024 ........................................................................ 20 6
- Beer Institute Advertising and Marketing Code 6
- Sep. 2023 ............................................................... 22 6
- Brett Frischmann Susan Benesch Friction-in- 6
- Design Regulation as a 21st Century Time Place and Manner Restriction 25 Yale J. L. Tech. 376 2023 ...................................................... 21 6
- Digital Trust Safety Partnership Age 6
- Assurance Guiding Principles and Best Practices 2023 ....................................................... 23 6
- Google Access Age-Restricted Content 6
- Features 2024 ........................................................ 22 6
- Kids Online Health and Safety Task Force 6
- Online Health and Safety for Children and Youth Best Practices for Families and Guidance for Industry 2024 ................................. 25 6
- Meta Learn About ID Verification for Meta 6
- Accounts 2024 ....................................................... 22 6
- Mohammed Raiz Shaffique et al. European 7
- Commission Research Report Mapping Age Assurance Typologies and Requirements 2024 ....................................................................... 15 7
- NetChoice NetChoice Condemns New Yorks 7
- New Unconstitutional Internet Censorship Law June 20 2024 ............................................... 30 7
- Noah Apthorpe Brett Frischmann Yan 7
- Shvartzsnaider Online Age Gating An Interdisciplinary Investigation Aug. 1 2024 .......................................... 6 19 20 22 7
- Pl.-Respts Res. Br. NetChoice LLC v. Bonta 7
- No. 23-2969 2024 WL 3838423 9th Cir. Aug. 16 2024 .................................................................. 30 7
- Pls Reply Br. NetChoice v. Fitch No. 124-cv- 7
- 170-HSO-BWR 2024 WL 3276409 S.D. Miss. July 1 2024 ............................................................ 29 7
- Sarah Forland Nat Meysenburg Erika Solis 7
- New America Foundation Open Technology Institute Age Verification The Complicated Effort to Protect Youth Online 2024 ........... 4 15 16 7
- Scott Babwah Brennan Matt Perault Keeping 7
- Kids Safe Online How Should Policymakers Approach Age Verification 2023 ......................... 15 7
- Thomas Barrabi Meta Google Leading Nearly 7
- 1M Lobbying Fight to Kill NY Online Child Safety Bills N.Y. Post May 20 2024 ................... 28 7
- Tim Bernard Stanford Program on Platform 7
- Regulation Legislative Approaches to Combating Online Harms to Children 2024 ....... 26 7
- INTEREST OF THE AMICUS CURIAE 8
- The Electronic Privacy Information Center 8
- EPIC is a public interest research center in Wash- ington D.C. established in 1994 to focus public atten- tion on emerging privacy and civil liberties issues. 8
- EPIC regularly participates as amicus in this 8
- SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT 9
- Online censorship is a real and pernicious 9
- We agree with Petitioners that the Fifth Circuit 9
- Whether H.B. 1181or any other law requiring 10
- If the Court decides against Texas in this case 10
- Online privacy and safety laws that involve age 10
- ARGUMENT 11
- I. The nature of the constitutional challenge in this case is fundamentally different than in the Courts precedent. 11
- The question presented in this case is one of 11
- See Age Verification The Complicated Effort to Protect Youth Online verification estimation Id. 11
- A. Laws that involve age assurance may bur- 12
- Laws that involve covered entities either esti- 12
- Laws that involve age assurance have two sig- 12
- To the extent that laws involving age assurance 13
- Thus when a litigant challenges the constitu- 13
- B. The Courts offline age assurance cases in- 14
- This Court has decided First Amendment chal- 14
- Take for instance Ginsberg v. New York 390 14
- Consider also Brown v. Entertainment Mer- 15
- Both Ginsberg and Brown were silent on the 15
- C. The Courts cases about adult censorship 16
- The suite of Supreme Court cases Petitioners 16
- The laws at issue in both Sable and Playboy cre- 16
- The constitutional challenge in Reno v. ACLU 17
- The CDA criminalized the act of transmitting 17
- The Reno Court briefly addressed age assurance 18
- Reno 18
- In Ashcroft the Court did not examine whether 19
- What the Ashcroft Court did do was to insist on 19
- This Court recently reiterated the high stand- 20
- A. In a facial challenge courts must be able 20
- It is impossible for a court to determine whether 20
- First courts need to be able to identify the range 21
- Providing a government ID Providing proof of credit card ownership Biometric scan of a face or voice Age estimation using existing company 21
- Parental attestation Self-attestation 22
- See Forland et al. supra note 2 at 1018. Different methods carry different privacy risks. The ultimate de- termination on whether they are likely to burden speech will be highly fact-based. 22
- Once a court determines which categories of age 22
- How the available age assurance tools work also 22
- Laws that require the government to either per- 23
- The district courts confusion about who would 23
- B. Courts must analyze the privacy and user 24
- Once the court has a record evaluating the 24
- Given the current state of technology it may 24
- The operative question when evaluating the pri- 25
- The user information an online tool collects pro- 25
- Whether and to what extent linkability is a risk 26
- Covered entities can also play a role in enhanc- 26
- A law involving age assurance can also mitigate 27
- C. Courts must analyze the user experience 28
- Courts should also review whether a law could 28
- As with privacy risks the operative question is 28
- To determine whether a given age assurance 29
- The number of steps a process re- 30
- The difficulty of each step in the pro- 30
- How often a user must undergo age 30
- These are just three of many potential considerations that courts need substantial records to gauge properly. 30
- In evaluating the likely impact of friction on ac- 30
- D. The baseline for measuring any chilling ef- 31
- Facts about the online services covered by the 31
- For example anonymity is an important feature 31
- In the present case covered entities include 31
- In sum litigants need to develop detailed fac- 32
- III. The Court should leave open the possibil- ity for legislatures to enact laws that give kids special protections online while also protecting their privacy. 32
- There is growing public recognition that kids 32
- A. Some content-neutral laws aimed at pro- 33
- Online age assurance laws are not monolithic. 33
- Age-appropriate design codes are one model for 33
- Other recently enacted and proposed laws 34
- The outcome of the present case should not 35
- B. Lower courts need the aid of a narrow de- 35
- Privacy and design regulations that use age as- 35
- There is ample evidence that tech companies 36
- Upon obtaining an injunction against a content- 36
- Kids online privacy and safety is an important 37
- CONCLUSION 38
- For the above reasons amicus EPIC respect- 38
- Respectfully submitted 38
- A B M I T M B S B E P I C EPIC 1519 New Hampshire Avenue NW Washington DC 20036 202 483-1140 202 483-1248 fax butlerepic.org 38
- September 23 2024 38
