HB1650

My name is Dr. Edward Longe and I serve as Director of National Strategy at the James Madison Institute, a 501 (c)(3) research organization based in Tallahassee, FL. The legislature’s intent to protect teenagers online is commendable, and I appreciate the opportunity to provide written testimony on House Bill 1650. However, Age Appropriate Design Codes, while well-intentioned, raise significant constitutional and privacy concerns that merit careful consideration. First, implementing age estimation at scale requires platforms to collect and analyze substantial personal data about New Hampshire residents—behavioral patterns, biometric indicators, device information, and potentially government-issued identification documents. This creates precisely the privacy vulnerability the legislature seeks to prevent: massive databases of sensitive information about minors and adults alike that become irresistible targets for cybercriminals. Recent breaches of age verification providers in Australia demonstrate this risk is not theoretical—hackers successfully accessed sensitive identity documents that subsequently appeared on the dark web, exposing users to identity theft and fraud. By mandating age estimation, HB 1650 paradoxically requires platforms to aggregate the very personal data about children that the bill aims to protect, transforming every covered platform into a high-value target for malicious actors. Second, many of the protections this bill mandates already exist as optional features that parents can enable today. Major platforms currently allow parents to disable direct messaging between their teenagers and unverified adults, restrict unknown adults from accessing their children’s profiles, limit data collection, and control privacy settings. The core problem is not availability—it’s awareness. Parents largely don’t know these tools exist or how to use them effectively. Education campaigns informing parents about existing protections would achieve the legislature’s goals without creating new privacy vulnerabilities, imposing compliance costs on platforms, or raising constitutional concerns. Government mandates that duplicate existing voluntary features may create a false sense of security while doing little to address the actual barrier: parental knowledge and engagement.???????????????? Third, HB 1650 faces serious First Amendment obstacles that have doomed similar legislation in other states. The bill’s age estimation requirement conditions access to constitutionally protected speech on identity assessment, effectively eliminating anonymous expression for users platforms deem “reasonably likely to be a child.” The Supreme Court has repeatedly protected anonymous speech as essential to First Amendment freedoms, from Talley v. California through McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission. Moreover, age estimation technologies will inevitably misidentify adults as minors, subjecting them to restrictions on their constitutional rights without recourse. In Reno v. ACLU, the Supreme Court struck down restrictions that reduced adults’ access to protected speech to what is suitable for children. The 2024 NetChoice decisions further reinforced that social media platforms facilitate speech entitled to full constitutional protection. Courts have consistently invalidated state laws that burden online speech in the name of child protection when less restrictive alternatives—like parental controls and education—can achieve the same goals without constitutional infirmity.????????????????