Despite some of the most prominent digital rights groups warning against New York’s age verification law known as Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act – one of those singing its praises is Hillary Clinton.
The former US secretary of state joined New York Governor Kathy Hochul on a panel during the Conference on Cyber Regulation, organized by Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, to single out SAFE, and also the Child Data Protection Act as positive developments, that both agreed need to be followed up with federal legislation along the same lines.
Yet critics have been cautioning lawmakers not to “sneak in” sweeping surveillance and censorship in the same package with efforts to protect children on the internet, as well as that laws requiring age verification are “incompatible with privacy and free expression rights for everyone.”
But Clinton commended Hochul during the conference held last week for the two “landmark” bills and wondered if more states could follow in New York’s footsteps since what would clearly be Clinton’s preferred route – the federal government and Congress – are not doing that.
In an ideal world, Hochul responded, “These would all be national federal policies” – and went on to assert that tech companies running social platforms should have implemented those policies on their own.
Under the SAFE Act, social media must determine their users’ age by deploying “commercially reasonable methods,” whereas the New York Child Data Protection Act is supposed to allow companies to collect data without consent only from those over 18 – and determine who is a minor and whether there is consent by using “device communications or signals.”
Hochul was dismissive of the serious and consistent opposition by rights groups in the US to the attempts to introduce online age verification through proposed methods. They cite the unconstitutional nature of these efforts (including blocking adults’ access to lawful content.)
However, the governor said she is “really proud” of the two bills, framing this criticism as coming mainly from the companies themselves, and saying they have used “every argument under the sun to say we can’t do this” – only to then, according to her, implement it.
“But the rest of the country and other states should absolutely follow suit. I believe in this so strongly,” said Hochul.
