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Mandatory age verification lands in Ohio  heres all you need to know

Date:
Mon, 29 Sep 2025 16:01:43 +0000

Description:
Ohio joins over 20 US states in enforcing some form of mandatory age
verification requirements. Critics keep warning against the impact on 
people's privacy.

FULL STORY

Ohio has joined the list of states to age-gate some forms of content in the
name of children's online safety. 

Starting from Tuesday, September 30, 2025, Ohio citizens are required to 
prove they are over 18 to access adult-only websites and other platforms
hosting "obscene or harmful to juveniles." 

This means that both adults and minors will need to be ready to share their
most sensitive information with these online services to grant access. A
requirement that has pushed users in other jurisdictions towards the best VPN
apps to protect their privacy and security. 

Ohio follows Arizona and over 20 more US states in passing some form of age
verification law . 

So far, these new obligations have fueled a debate around the balance between
children's digital safety and privacy. Ohio's age verification law  a long
awaited milestone 

Ohio's age verification law comes as a milestone that lawmakers have been
trying to pass for years. Yet, after reintroducing the provision this summer
in its over 3,000-page-long budget bill , mandatory age verification was
finally approved in June. Two months later, it's the law. 

As per Ohio HB 96's provision , citizens are required to submit a photo ID or
transactional data, such as employment or education records, to grant access
to content that's deemed "obscene or harmful to juveniles." For ongoing
accounts, platforms must verify users' ages every two years. 

As a Senior Policy and Advocacy Expert at the Internet Society, John Perrino
told TechRadar, while it's reasonable to require adult websites and social
media platforms to take measures to prevent children from reaching explicit
content, these types of laws also make people vulnerable to privacy and
security risks. 

He said: "Its another thing entirely to require everyone in a state to hand
over an ID and risk their online privacy and security to access legal
material." 

Critics are also worried that the vague wording around what constitutes
"harmful" content could also end up censoring important resources online, 
such as health or sexual education material. 

All in all, Perrino believes that age verification requirements dont keep
people safe on their own. 

"Age-based safety measures that provide default protections and give people
control over the type of content they want to see are better alternatives," 
he added.

"A geofence system"

Online service providers are also required to use "a geofence system" to
monitor the geolocation of all internet users trying to access age-gated
content. 

This means that, when users' location shows Ohio, online platforms are
required to block the content until "a person's age has been verified using
reasonable age verification methods." 

While an IP address isn't the only detail that can be used to determine a
person's location online, it's certainly the most-used one. 

If that's the case in Ohio, circumventing tools like a virtual private 
network (VPN) could enable citizens to look like they're browsing from a
completely different location and bypass any of these geo-restrictions. 

The ease of bypassing mandatory age checks is exactly the reason why Michigan
is also targeting VPN usage with its new proposed adult content law. An
outcome that would further endanger Americans' right to privacy and security. 

Commenting on this point, NordVPN 's privacy advocate, Laura Tyrylyte, told
TechRadar: "Restricting access to these technologies not only jeopardizes
individual liberties but also sets a worrying precedent for increased
government control over the open internet." 

While Ohio's law doesn't include any VPN blocking requirements, this might
change if VPNs were to end up making this provision ineffective.

======================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/mandatory-age-verification-
lands-in-ohio-heres-all-you-need-to-know

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