Purveyors of online pornography will have to verify that their customers are adults before giving them access to the content, according to a new Ohio law.
Lawmakers included the requirement in the massive state budget bill that won final approval in June. The new law requires any organization that sells or presents any material or performance that is “obscene or harmful to juveniles” to utilize reasonable age-verification methods.
Those methods include using a commercial service that uses photo IDs or transactional records, such as mortgage or employment data, to confirm the user is at least 18 years old. The data would be deleted once age verification is completed.
Businesses that fail to comply with the new law, which takes effect at the end of September, could face civil lawsuits from the Ohio attorney general.
In past years, state lawmakers have considered stand-alone bills to require age verification, including Senate Bill 212 in 2024 and House Bill 84 in 2025.
Gary Daniels, a lobbyist with the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, criticized the idea of requiring photo IDs to access constitutionally protected speech online, and said that “harmful to juveniles” is a murky, subjective term.
David Mahan of the Center for Christian Virtue said age verification requirements would “help prevent minors from viewing explicit content online, and protect them from an industry that is internationally known for child exploitation.”
Age verification laws are sweeping across the nation. According to the Free Speech Coalition, which opposes these restrictions, 24 states have enacted such laws since 2022, and more are considering such legislation.
The coalition is suing in seven states to challenge the laws. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that a Texas age-verification law could stand, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing for the majority that states have the authority to require age verification to stop children from accessing pornography.
State government reporter Laura Bischoff can be reached at lbischoff@gannett.com and @lbischoff on X.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio’s new budget includes law requiring age verification for porn access
Reporting by Laura A. Bischoff, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
