Hear us on internet privacy debate
For LGBTQ teens, immigrants, women, and other marginalized communities, the internet is an essential resource for accessing critical and sometimes life-saving information. But youth exploring their gender and sexuality are increasingly at risk of losing access to online support networks; immigrants may soon face insurmountable hurdles to finding legal information to help them stay in the country; and those seeking abortions could lose access to information on the internet that is more important than ever.
These restrictions are the byproduct of well-intended but misguided children’s internet privacy legislation currently sweeping the nation. In most cases, these laws would force websites to implement strict age verification requirements that ultimately lead to more data collection while inadvertently cutting marginalized communities off from critical online resources.
California, Utah, and Louisiana have already passed such laws, while the federal Kids Online Safety Act continues to move forward — even as its co-sponsor, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, celebrates how the bill would censor LGBTQ content online.
In New York, three pieces of legislation — S3281/A4967, S7694/ A8148, and S7695/A8149 — were introduced this year. If we don’t open a nuanced dialogue on these proposals between lawmakers and the communities they impact, the way we use the internet will be forever changed, with marginalized people once again being hit hardest.
These bills mean to protect childrens’ privacy, but age verification is tricky.
First, it requires users to not only give their full name, but also prove their identity by either submitting to facial recognition technology (which has a well-documented history of racial bias), providing an official government-issued ID, or handing over extensive amounts of personal information, including credit card numbers.
Second, not only is age verification an expensive and onerous requirement for websites, this legislation would put a burden on them to effectively protect these massive troves of sensitive data from hackers and other security breaches.
For New York’s most marginalized communities, being forced to “out” yourself to use the internet defeats the concept of privacy. Those without a government ID or who simply prefer to remain anonymous to discreetly seek out information, as is their right, would be shut off from important resources.
Our organizations, the Brooklyn Community Pride Center and New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE), recently released surveys of our community members showing that respondents strongly opposed the prospect of these age verification methods.
At NICE, we work with many immigrant workers, documented and undocumented, seeking immigration relief such as asylum or naturalization. Many of these immigrant workers are victims of labor violations, such as wage theft, sexual harassment, and even labor trafficking at the hands of their employers.
Our members use the internet to find immigration services, information about their employer, or information on how to report labor violations. Since many of our members don’t have a driver’s license, a government ID, or even a credit card, age verification — and therefore, access to the internet — becomes significantly more difficult.
This is also true for the youth these bills are meant to protect. At Brooklyn Community Pride Center, we often work with LGBTQ youth looking for resources on how to talk with their parents about their sexuality, or deal with bullying in school. The wrong kind of legislation would not only stop these kids from exploring resources anonymously, but in some cases require their parents’ permission to visit supportive websites or find community online — forcing kids to come out to their parents, who might disapprove or bar access entirely.
That’s why we have joined the New York Inclusive Internet Coalition, fighting for our communities to have a seat at the table when Albany enacts new laws for the internet. The coalition includes diverse community-based organizations representing LGBTQ youth, immigrant communities, privacy advocates and others. We aim to educate our communities and lawmakers on these issues and demand that marginalized New Yorkers’ perspectives come first when tackling internet privacy and surveillance.
On Oct. 26, we joined with dozens of other allies and stakeholders at an NYU Law symposium around child privacy bills, and we’ll continue to amplify the voices of our community members as long as this legislation threatens them.
We believe in privacy protection for everyone, but we’ll only achieve it through a nuanced and thoughtful discussion between a wide range of stakeholders, where we put New York’s marginalized communities first. The time to have these conversations is now.