My thoughts on Ohio's new age verification law

This summer, Ohio legislators tucked the new law into the state's two-year budget, approved in June, after attempts to pass a porn ID bill in past years had failed. In my opinion, this shouldn’t be allowed or legal. The law failed to pass, yet it was shoehorned in with the budget?

The new law requires organizations that sell or present materials or performances "obscene or harmful to juveniles" to use reasonable age-verification methods. Failure to comply could result in civil lawsuits from the Ohio attorney general.

Who is deciding what is "obscene or harmful to juveniles"?

Where are the guidelines governing what is considered "obscene or harmful to juveniles"?

The new law requires pornography websites to use a commercial service, or third-party or government database, that uses photo IDs or transactional records, such as mortgage or employment data, to confirm the user is at least 18 years old. The data would be deleted once age verification is completed.

I ran into the new age verification requirement at Bsky.app (BlueSky) and the company they chose to work with, Kids Web Services (KWS), are not deleting the information used for verification, but instead holding it in their system to be used if and when I visit another site that uses their age verification service.

The law requires age verification services to delete the information used once verification has been completed; yet, KWS is retaining this information.

While I understand policing the internet for people who have kids is hard, if not downright impossible, I am not sure why I, or any other adult, for that matter, has to give PII to ensure someone else’s kid(s) cannot access content deemed "obscene or harmful to juveniles".

To me, this law is like using a sledgehammer to drive in a nail. It could potentially put my PII at risk, failed to pass on its own, and was simply imposed by inserting it into the budget. To me, this is wrong on so many levels.

When did the will of the few become the law of the land in Ohio?