Utah Enforcement Begins on Monday for Adult Website Age Verification Law
According to ksl.com, Utah intends to begin implementing its adult website age-verification regulations on Monday, aiming to penalize platforms that permit underage individuals to watch online adult content. Margaret Busse, executive director of the commerce department, offered a stark assessment of the industry when speaking with the outlet.
“Porn is one of the most damaging content that we see out there in general and I think people recognize that it screws them up mentally,” Busse said. “These are just not good sites, and frankly, the purveyors of them — I don’t know how they sleep at night.”
State lawmakers approved SB73 earlier this year, expanding on an earlier law requiring adult websites to verify the ages of users to prevent minors from accessing pornography. The new legislation gives the Division of Consumer Protection, part of the Department of Commerce, the authority to actively pursue companies violating the mandate. It also establishes a new tax on adult websites to help pay for enforcement while funding youth mental health programs, alongside provisions holding companies accountable if users bypass requirements using virtual private networks.
Lawmakers Design Measure to Relieve Parental Burden Online
State lawmakers designed the legislation to relieve parents facing the “nearly impossible” task of keeping their kids from encountering adult content on the internet. Sen. Calvin Musselman, R-West Haven, sponsored the measure and pointed directly to the daily difficulties families encounter online.
“I’m a parent. I recognize the burden of parenting,” Musselman told ksl.com, noting that parents need all the assistance available. “They need all the help they can get and it’s not unreasonable to ask those that are providing that material to provide some level of scrutiny as to who’s accessing it. They say they only want to provide access for adults. Then, fine, let’s just simply age verify then.”
Corporate Pushback and Litigation from Aylo
Legal battles have already shaped how the policy is carried out. Last month, a legal challenge from Aylo—which operates Pornhub, RedTube, and several additional adult platforms—resulted in a temporary pause on the virtual private networks rule. Following the state’s initial push for mandatory age verification, Aylo previously blocked Utah residents from viewing its web pages.
In a lengthy statement provided to ksl.com, Aylo addressed the upcoming enforcement timeline. “We are glad to see the state of Utah will finally enforce its law after 3.5 years, but this changes nothing about our operations,” the company said. “Aylo has publicly supported age verification of users for years, but we believe that any law to this effect must preserve user safety and privacy, and must effectively protect children from accessing content intended for adults.”
The company contends that performing age verification at the source on the device represents the best solution, stating it would support efforts to “arrive at an effective device-based age verification solution.” Meanwhile, Busse emphasized that Utah’s law does not require companies to verify users’ identities, only their ages, and mandates that companies delete any information used to verify ages immediately without state collection.
Division of Consumer Protection Investigation and Penalties
Although litigation put parts of the legislation on hold, state officials determined they can proceed with enforcing the remainder of the law. Busse stated that the division will investigate companies’ adherence to the rules and seek fines for each violation.
To support these efforts, the department has implemented specialized computing and auditing infrastructure developed by enterprise technology partners, though Busse declined to elaborate on specific mechanics. “I don’t want to comment too much on our techniques, but I can say that we are using some advanced technology to be able to assess this,” she told ksl.com.
The state can levy fines of up to $2,500 per violation against noncompliant platforms, a figure that could accumulate rapidly for high-traffic sites. However, Busse stressed that revenue generation is not the primary objective. “We just want them to stop doing it,” she said regarding age verification compliance. “We’re not looking to go and make money off of this, so to speak. We’re not looking to go and issue a lot of fines. We’re looking to make sure they are doing it.”
