Taxpayer Watchdog Slams Age Verification for Chatbots

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Kara Zupkus (224) 456-0257

WASHINGTON, D.C. – This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to conduct a markup of the GUARD Act, a bill to mandate age verification for artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots. Congress and state legislatures across the country have recently seen age verification mandates proposed for numerous digital services and at multiple levels of the technological stack. All the while, the databases created by age verification are being hacked and leaked.

In anticipation of the hearing, David B. McGarry, Research Director of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, offered the following comment:

“The GUARD Act is but the latest measure to condition Americans’ access to the most basic digital services on their willingness to give up their personal data to platforms. Despite the claims of age verification advocates, repeated experience has demonstrated that the databases of verifiers remain vulnerable to data incidents. Identity theft is no joke, and particularly not for American children, one in four of whom will fall victim before the age of 18. The GUARD Act is being advanced in the name of protecting children, but it will put them at greater risk.

“The worriers and malcontents of the digital age have proven this much: they wish for every platform, every device, every level of the technological stack to be placed behind a barrier of age or identity verification and subjected to government intervention in the name of security. The user must verify his age at the device or app store level. He must verify his age to use social media. He must verify his age to use AI. And it goes on. Privacy, anonymity, and, ultimately, liberty will be dispensed with if necessary for the purposes of accomplishing the elusive goal of sanitizing the internet.

“There are measures that can be taken to protect children online. The GUARD Act—which will limit Americans’ freedom to use digital services and erode their privacy—is not one.”

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The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to educating the public through the research, analysis, and dissemination of information on the government’s impact on the economy.