HB1658

Testimony of Dr. Edward Longe Of The James Madison Institute Before New Hampshire Commerce and Consumer Affairs Regarding HB1658 Chair Hunt and Members of the Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee, My name is Dr. Edward Longe, and I serve as Director of National Strategy at the James Madison Institute. We're guided by the principles of individual responsibility, limited government, and free markets—principles I believe we share with many of you. As a new father to a 10 week old newborn, I take concerns about children's online safety seriously. But I respectfully recommend against age verification mandates—not because the problem isn't real, but because age verification is fundamentally flawed. It violates constitutional rights, wastes taxpayer money on doomed litigation, and accomplishes nothing for the families it claims to protect. Federal courts have struck down every social media age-verification mandate as unconstitutional. Rather than learn from these failures, legislators simply moved the compliance burden from platforms to app stores. The result? The exact same constitutional problems and the exact same outcomes. In Texas, a federal judge recently enjoined that state's App Store Accountability Act, warning that it "restricts access to a vast universe of speech by requiring Texans to prove their age before downloading a mobile app." In Arkansas, a federal judge struck down that state's social media age verification law, in similar grounds The pattern is unmistakable. Age verification mandates, whether imposed on platforms or app stores, lose in court every single time. Any such law will face immediate constitutional challenge, years of expensive litigation funded by taxpayers, and ultimately, an injunction. The only winners will be lawyers billing by the hour. Not a single child will be better protected. Beyond the constitutional problems, age verification mandates create dangerous precedents for privacy and government power. These mandates force platforms to collect and verify age data on every resident who uses an app store. The government requires private companies to build databases linking identities to ages, locations, and every app downloaded. In practice, that means uploading government IDs, submitting to facial recognition scans, or providing credit card information. Every resident—adult and teen alike—must prove their age.. Yes, age verification can block access to some harmful content. but it does so by restricting everyone's speech and treating every app download as presumptively dangerous. Age verification doesn't stop determined teenagers. It doesn't teach critical thinking. What it does do is normalize digital surveillance, create data honeypots vulnerable to breaches, and condition an entire generation to accept that constitutional rights require government permission slips. Age verification mandates also strip decision-making authority from parents and transfer it to tech companies and state bureaucrats. Different families will take different approaches based on their values and their children's maturity—that's called parenting, not a problem requiring legislative solutions. In 2023, Florida required public schools to teach social media literacy—covering mental health risks, the permanence of shared content, and how to identify predatory behavior and human trafficking tactics. Unlike age-verification mandates, this faced no constitutional challenges. More importantly, it's equipping young Floridians to navigate online spaces safely without restricting speech or undermining parental authority. Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina have followed suit. A constitutional alternative exists—and it works. A fifteen-year-old who learns to recognize manipulative content carries that knowledge across every digital space they'll encounter. They'll spot deepfakes, identify scams, and understand when they're being exploited. These are life skills that don't expire at eighteen—unlike age verification gates that simply open when teenagers become adults. I understand the pressure to "do something." But doing something unconstitutional is worse than doing nothing at all. Age verification creates the illusion of protection while building surveillance infrastructure that threatens everyone's privacy, wastes taxpayer money on inevitable litigation, and fails to address the actual challenges teenagers face online. The evidence is clear: waste money on losing lawsuits while building a surveillance state, or invest in education that respects constitutional rights, preserves parental authority, and actually protects children. A proven constitutional path forward exists. I encourage you to pursue it. Thank you. I'm happy to answer questions.

Good Morning, I just wanted to state my opposition to this bill, primarily because of its lack of nuance in what apps and platforms need age verification, and concerns over consumer privacy and data protection that would potentially lead to harmful data breaches for little to no gain in child safety. We should all be honest in the fact that it's insanely easy for teens to bypass the restrictions with VPN's, location hacks, and other tools. We need to be placing more emphasis on better parental education and training in our public-school systems (honest, without the scare tactics) as these are more effective. I appreciate you taking time to consider my testimony, as short as it may be. I am also more than willing to give a more in depth opinion if it would benefit the State of New Hampshire. Thank You

Chair Hunt and members of the House Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee: The Technology Policy Project at Reason Foundation provides pro bono consulting to public officials and stakeholders to help design and implement artificial intelligence (AI), digital free speech, data security and privacy, child online safety, and tech industry competition policies. Our team brings practical, market-oriented strategies to help foster innovation, competition, and consumer choice through technology policies that work. New Hampshire is right to want to protect kids from content inappropriate for their age. Unfortunately, New Hampshire House Bill 1658 (HB 1658), like many laws introduced in state legislatures across the country, forces all users to hand over their personal information, such as a government-issued ID, or to submit to a biometric facial scan for age verification in order to access online applications and engage in free expression. And if parents wish to declare that their children are using a service with their permission, this bill would still require parents to submit their private, sensitive information first. This bill’s proposed heavy-handed and constitutionally troubling approach to online youth safety shuts out users seeking an avenue to exercise their right to anonymous speech and puts sensitive personal information at risk of being stolen or hacked. Utah and Texas have passed legislation that is substantially similar to HB 1658, resulting in expensive legal challenges, while doing little to ensure the safety of children online today. An Alternative that Empowers Parents, Protects Rights, and Holds Companies to Account To that end, New Hampshire would be better served by implementing policies like California’s Assembly Bill 1043 (2025), which relies on parent declarations and age assurance. Instead of requiring all users to submit a government ID or any other invasive form of age verification, this approach allows parents to declare their children’s age category. Once a parent has declared the age of their child, this alternative approach would then require an app store to send a digital signal to developers. These age signals put app stores and developers on notice that they are dealing with children, and with that notice comes all the legal liability of dealing with children in the offline world. Rather than the intrusive, privacy-violating regulations inherent in HB 1658, New Hampshire should look to solutions that empower parents, including parent-side tools like device settings and app control options to protect kids without undermining personal privacy or security. Sincerely, Caden Rosenbaum (caden.rosenbaum@reason.org)

I dont agree with the portions of the bill that reference an undefined "age verification process" that any user of the app must undergo and further states the app may "share personal age verification data as required by law." Any age verification process will by definition link a real world identity back to an application and / or mobile device and this leaves a loophole for state or federal government entities to monitor adult users of mobile apps and use this information in a discriminatory manner or to suppress free speech that the state doesnt like. I also have no confidence in any verification software to keep user information secure considering how many data breaches keep happening.

I oppose this bill because it does not expand transparency, protections, or meaningful benefits for New Hampshire residents.

This is a parent-child, or family, issue, and not a state government issue to legislate. A bill such as this should never even be proposed.

Position recorded without written comment.

Position recorded without written comment.

Position recorded without written comment.

Position recorded without written comment.

Position recorded without written comment.