Court Agrees with EFF: Utah's VPN Law Demands a Technical Impossibility
"When state lawmakers attempt to rewrite how the internet works," argues an EFF blog post, "users rely on courts to recognize that laws can't make technical impossibilities a reality." "That's why we were happy to see that a court has blocked Utah's attempt to outlaw the privacy protections of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)." In a win for digital rights, a federal judge has issued a preliminary…
A federal judge has blocked Utah's SB 73, a controversial anti-VPN age verification law, deeming it a technical impossibility. The Utah lawmakers aimed to regulate adult websites by mandating them to block VPN users or identify the physical location of visitors using them. However, the judge ruled that such a law would likely violate the U.S. Constitution's prohibition on significantly burdening businesses and people outside Utah's borders.
This decision is significant as it preserves digital privacy and security for users worldwide, preventing websites from being forced to detect and block privacy-preserving tools. The EFF argues that enforcing age verification laws based on identity documents excludes critical sections of populations, particularly those lacking government-issued identification.
The ongoing battle against site-blocking bills poses a threat to a free and open internet, as no method for blocking access to a website without causing harm to free and lawful speech has been discovered.
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