Protecting Children Online: Where Florida’s New Law Falls Short

Kids Online

Some of nan state’s caller kid information rule tin beryllium easy circumvented. Should it person gone further?

14 Jan 2025  •  , 4 min. read

Florida’s authorities legislators precocious passed a caller measure aimed astatine protecting children online. The highlights of nan bill, which is known arsenic HB 3, are mandatory property verification for accessing worldly that is deemed harmful to minors, and prohibiting children younger than 14 from joining societal media, pinch parental aliases guardian consent required for those nether 16.

Without wishing to participate nan statement connected nan merits of nan intent of nan bill, I personally work together that protecting minors from inappropriate and harmful contented is simply a affirmative measurement moreover if nan measures are unenforceable and only enactment to raise awareness.

The VPN workaround

The request to restrict entree to harmful contented by requiring property verification has caused a surge of group searching for ‘VPN’ (Virtual Private Network), according to Google Trends. There’s besides a flurry of articles that explicate really to circumvent nan request by utilizing a VPN to disguise your location and look to beryllium extracurricular of Florida. Many of these articles – which person been published particularly aft respective awesome big websites blocked nan full authorities from access successful consequence to nan rule – are sponsored aliases incorporate connection links to download and acquisition VPN package and services.

Is this each surprising? No. VPN exertion has agelong been a celebrated instrumentality for circumventing entree restrictions, whether they’re geo-restrictions connected streaming platforms aliases entree to restricted content. With HB 3 successful place, implementing a regularisation specified arsenic property verification intends that each users, sloppy of age, request to beryllium property verified, and frankincense anyone not wishing to beryllium identified successful immoderate measurement erstwhile browsing adult-based contented will look for alternate methods to entree content.

The Florida authorities does, successful immoderate form, limit nan consequence of ‘accidental browsing’ of contented that whitethorn beryllium harmful, since entree to specified contented will beryllium down nan ‘age verification wall’, arsenic opposed to a publically accessible homepage. I’m judge commercialized companies who monetize by providing big contented will want to debar nan attraction of rule enforcement and HB 3 to debar imaginable ineligible action and fines. But location is simply a wide of big contented connected nan net that is disposable without commercialized intent and is hosted successful countries wherever taking ineligible action from Florida whitethorn conscionable beryllium excessively complex, aliases adjacent impossible.

Given nan restrictions imposed by nan authorities are truthful easy circumvented, possibly nan measure could person gone 1 measurement further. When drafting nan legislation, personification successful nan room surely mentioned that it could beryllium circumvented easy by using a VPN – astatine slightest I dream they did. For me, this raises nan mobility of why nan authorities doesn’t spot limitations that spell beyond nan contented supplier and see services that supply nan expertise to virtualize your location to location extracurricular of Florida.

VPN exertion provides cybersecurity benefits, peculiarly erstwhile connecting complete nationalist networks, but its functionality is often misunderstood. The presumption that nan relationship becomes backstage is only existent successful part. When utilizing a VPN, nan relationship is only encrypted betwixt nan instrumentality and nan VPN server; from this server to nan intended destination, nan relationship is nary longer successful nan encrypted passageway and is nan aforesaid arsenic immoderate modular relationship betwixt nan browser and nan destination webserver.

VPN providers still person visibility into cardinal details: they cognize nan location of nan device, via its IP address, and nan intended destination of nan request. Using elemental web filtering tools, nan VPN supplier could simply artifact entree to big contented aliases instrumentality their ain property verification requirements, removing nan anticipation to circumvent nan restrictions. For example, net work providers successful nan UK adopt a akin approach, arsenic they artifact big contented by default unless users opt in, thereby protecting minors.

Missing nan mark?

When creating legislation, and knowing it could beryllium bypassed easily, should legislators person attempted to enforce a regularisation connected nan known easy methods utilized to get astir nan legislation? The answer, astatine slightest for me, is yes. Without taking nan authorities 1 measurement further and providing robust restrictions that make it analyzable and difficult to circumvent, nan rule risks being reduced to small much than a symbolic motion aliases an consciousness campaign.

If we are superior astir protecting minors connected nan net and limiting entree to harmful contented to those of a suitable age, past it astir apt requires a brave re-think of nan net and really its users could beryllium identified.