Trust Stamp: Court agrees digital facial images can be used for age verification

Trust Stamp said: “In a decision delivered on March 7th, 2023, The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that imposing age verification for access to pornography does not violate the First Amendment, partially overturning an injunction placed on the Texas House Bill 1181 by a District court in August of 2023. The appeals court found that the appropriate standard for review should have been a rational-basis and that age verification requirements can rationally be considered part of the legitimate interest the government has in restricting minors from accessing pornography. The court also found that biometric age estimation based on a facial image is allowable under the legislation and does not present a greater privacy risk than in-person age verification.” Trust Stamp President Andrew Gowasack commented, “This decision is a major affirmation of the urgent need and market potential for AI-based age estimation services. The Texas statute recognizes the risk of personal information being stored in potentially insecure environments and with Trust Stamp’s age estimation technology, no biometric data is ever stored. HB 1181 imposes substantial penalties on non-compliant sites and we believe that there will now be a rush to comply with the law. That aside, there are countless online and in-person use cases for age estimation services both to limit access by minors and to protect sites designed for use by minors from misuse by adults, and we believe that they all create substantial opportunities for our privacy-protecting AI-Powered solution.”