Louisiana's New Porn Law Presents Massive Privacy Risk

What is Louisiana's new porn law?

Known as Act 440, Louisiana's new porn law is the first of its kind. It only applies to Louisiana-based web users trying to access porn sites, such as Pornhub, RedTube, or YouPorn. Those users will now be prompted to verify their age by providing personal details from a government-issued ID such as a Driver's License.

For example, a Louisiana resident visiting Pornhub is now presented with a data verification page with a button to, "Check my age." Upon clicking that, they will be asked to create an AllpassTrust account which will then prompt them to verify their age by connecting their LA Wallet. The LA Wallet is a government-issued mobile app that provides a legal digital replica of a person's Louisiana Driver's License.

Authored by Representative Laurie Schlegel (R-LA) and signed by Democrat, Governor John Bel Edwards, the new law applies to websites where at least 33.3% of the total content is considered “harmful to minors”. The Act describes in detail what it classes as harmful material, but it can be quickly summarized as “pornography”.

With the passing of the law, any website that fails to perform data verification, specifically “age verification", for any Louisiana-based user will be liable for damages due to a minor's access to such content.

Louisiana's new porn law presents a data privacy problem

This new requirement to submit personal data to enter these sites has naturally caused concerns about privacy. The websites in question aren't actually the ones performing the data verification. They use external services that specialize in data verification.

While people might be comfortable sharing their data with a large, established website, these age-verification third-party sites can be completely unheard of. It is hard to know whether they are trustworthy or have the correct infrastructure in place to protect the data that they verify.

Louisana's new porn law explicitly requires that data-collecting companies don't retain or share the data. But it is almost impossible for people to know if these companies actually comply with that.

The data verification companies and the adult sites may make a declaration that no information is stored. Pornhub's message states:

"We guarantee that Pornhub does not collect any data during this process. This process is carried out by reputable service providers who specialize in verifying the age of online users. Your proof of age does not allow anyone to trace your online activity,"

But how do users actually know that that's true?

There is no telling if the data is stored, for how long, or how it is deleted. As such, users have little confidence that their private data won't be collected, retained, shared, or exposed, either through third-party data brokers or as a result of a data breach.

Identity theft and blackmail are real risks

Users are being asked to trust multiple websites and set up accounts with different services, and vendors. In the example above there are three entities involved in gaining website access— Pornhub, AllpassTrust, and LA Wallet.

There is a myriad of adult sites out there, all of them with their own data verification process requiring the users to share their personal data with multiple entities.

The more accounts, the more opportunities for their data to be compromised.

Not only does Louisiana's new porn law present a very real risk of identity theft, but due to the nature of the websites, there is also a risk of the data being used for blackmail.

Acting as a “bouncer” to adult content, these third-party sites become a sensitive hotspot for would-be hackers. They are a direct link to a person's identity and viewing preferences. Should this highly private and sensitive information be leaked it could have a huge impact on a person's reputation, and their public, professional, or private life.

Supporters of Louisiana's new porn law claim that it is to stop children from gaining access to adult sites, but there are already a number of parental supervision apps to control what young people and children see while they are online. While these apps may not be perfect, they don't require millions of people to upload their ID documents to third-party companies and risk their privacy in doing so.

READ MORE: Don't Let Identity Theft Consequences Ruin Your Life