Ohio Rep Grills Google on Support for Age-Assurance Bill
An Ohio state representative questioned Google’s intentions for supporting an age-verification bill (HB-302) at a House Judiciary Committee hearing livestreamed Wednesday.
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Kate Charlet, a director on Google’s public policy team, supported HB-302’s approach of directing app store owners like Google to provide signals to apps showing that a user is a minor without sharing specific age or identity information. The bill leaves it up to the apps to then act on that signal.
However, Rep. Josh Williams (R) believes “this bill provides zero age verification,” though it provides “immunity for Google,” he said. “The only thing that's clear in the bill … is that you have immunity.” Williams added later in the hearing that he isn’t “interested in just giving them immunity without the age verification as a tradeoff.”
Charlet said HB-302 takes a good approach to a “complicated issue,” which is "how do you do age assurance ... in a balanced way that is not privacy invasive and that is effective?" The bill's liability provisions protect app stores and developers alike that make good-faith efforts to comply, she added.
Ohio’s Senate Technology Committee weighed two other child online safety bills that would require age verification at a hearing last week (see 2510010024).
Legislators are considering a new approach after a federal district court struck down a previous Ohio age-verification law targeting social media companies. That April decision is on appeal at the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (see 2510030060).