A renewed effort to mandate age verification for access to online pornography is advancing in Ohio, sparking immediate backlash from privacy advocates, civil liberties groups, and everyday internet users.

State Reps. Steven Demetriou (R-Geauga County) and Josh Williams (R-Toledo), along with State Sens. Stephanie Kunze (R-Dublin) and Bill DeMora (D-Columbus), have introduced legislation requiring pornography websites to verify users’ ages using government-issued IDs or third-party databases.

The proposed law aims to protect minors from sexually explicit content, but critics warn it could have far-reaching consequences for digital privacy and access to information.

If enacted, the legislation would require websites hosting pornographic content to:

• Implement strict age-verification measures, including requiring users to upload a photo ID or verify their age through third-party services.
• Impose penalties on platforms that fail to comply, similar to laws passed in other states.

Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, a strong advocate for the measure, framed the bill as a common-sense solution to prevent minors from accessing adult material.

“It is illegal in the physical world to market and sell adult products to kids and teenagers,” Husted said. “This bill applies the same rules to the digital world.”

However, privacy advocates argue that the bill could force millions of Ohioans to hand over sensitive personal data just to access legal adult content.

The proposal has ignited controversy among Ohio residents, with both conservatives and liberals expressing concerns about government overreach, digital surveillance, and data security risks.

“I’m not putting my ID on any of these sites! I’ll just use my imagination,” one Ohioan wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“No one is going to create a log of the porn that they watch that can someday be used against them, someday be used to blackmail them,” said Cleveland resident Mallory McMaster.

Despite bipartisan support for the bill, public reaction has been largely negative, with many arguing that the government should focus on pressing issues like healthcare and the economy rather than regulating online porn consumption.

“We didn’t ask them to take porn away from us when we sent them to Columbus,” McMaster added. “We asked them to fix the economy.”

Ohio would join a growing list of states—Arkansas, North Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Texas, Utah, and Virginia—that have implemented age-verification laws for adult content.

However, real-world data suggests these laws have been largely ineffective.

In Louisiana, one of the first states to implement the policy, traffic to Pornhub dropped by 80%—but users didn’t stop watching porn.

Instead, they migrated to non-compliant websites and unregulated platforms that don’t require age verification, don’t follow the law, and often lack moderation or user safety protections.

“These people did not stop looking for porn,” said Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub, in a statement. “They just migrated to darker corners of the internet that don’t take user safety seriously.”

Critics argue that age verification at the website level creates more problems than it solves, exposing users to:

Potential data breaches, with hackers targeting sensitive personal information.
Government surveillance risks, raising concerns about tracking and censorship.
Increased demand for VPNs, allowing minors and adults alike to easily bypass restrictions.
Instead, Aylo and digital rights groups advocate for device-based age verification solutions, where age restrictions are managed locally on smartphones, tablets, and computers—similar to existing parental control features.

“The only solution that makes the internet safer while preserving user privacy is performing age verification at the source: on the device,” Aylo stated. “The technology to accomplish this exists today. What is required is the political and social will to make it happen.”

While the Ohio Senate bill is still in its early stages and has yet to be assigned a bill number, it is expected to face significant debate before moving forward.

A more extreme House version of the bill—which would criminalize minors for lying about their age to access porn—has been introduced separately but has not been endorsed by Senate sponsors.

As the fight over digital privacy and government regulation continues, Ohioans are left to wonder: Will this law actually protect children, or will it simply push more users into unsafe, unregulated online spaces?