It looks like Wisconsin has dropped their efforts to implement a VPN ban in their age verification legislation.
The concept of age verification is a failure. Experts warned about what a failure these laws would be all over the world, but lawmakers ignored those warnings. Through a pro government censorship cult-like mentality, lawmakers pushing age verification laws all over the world invented an alternative reality where age verification technology today actually works and that constitutional protections of citizens simply don’t exist. Disregarding all common sense and experts alike, laws have been pushed through anyway as experts were dismissed as simply being wrong, evil, perverted, or downright dangerous among other things.
The thing is, as I’ve said for many years, reality doesn’t care about your personal beliefs. It does what it does and if you can’t accept it, well, that is your problem. First, the technology proved to be highly unreliable after it got fooled by things like sharpies and a picture of a golden retriever. Second, the technology is proving insecure despite promises of data not even being collected in the first place. The Discord data breach last year along with the Persona data leak this year proved that in spades. Further, the technology can easily be sidestepped through alternative services, using computer generated images, and, of course, using anonymous tools such as VPNs to skirt the age verification systems altogether.
The only thing that is surprising is the extent of which age verification has failed. Between the blatant efforts at implementing surveillance programs and the failures of the technology, it was actually comical just how bad the technology is in the first place. The failures, in general, were predictable. Anyone who knew about technology were saying that the technology would have been defeated through any of these methods. So, the general concepts of how the technology was defeated through countless ways was unsurprising. Yet, people like us who were warning of this were branded the heretics in the debate. Heck, sometimes, our warnings were deemed offensive and not something to consider seriously.
Now that reality has set in, however, age verification pushers were left shocked and dismayed that their reality bubble popped in such a spectacular fashion. As a result, they were left scrambling to figure out how to get out of the jam that they were warned they would be in. The sensible solution would’ve been to drop these age verification laws altogether, but remember, these lawmakers are in a war with reality and they don’t give up so easily as they fight modern reality. So, in response, some lawmakers, such as those in the UK, have opted to push age verification onto VPN services. It’s an even dumber move, but the stupidity of such a law pales into comparison to other jurisdictions such as Wisconsin that opted to ban VPNs altogether. Responding to that with a “good luck with that” response would be understating the situation in pretty epic fashion.
Indeed, companies who conduct businesses internationally use VPNs to keep their data and communications secure. What’s more, average every day citizens use VPN services, in part, to keep their web browsing secure. This isn’t even mentioning the fact that VPN services operate all over the world. Nothing about a VPN ban bill even hints at being workable, but some lawmakers have gone to the extreme of just putting into law because it they make it a law, then it just magically happens. Just like how mandating age verification technology be “highly effective” will somehow magically make the technology perfect in every way. Yeah, how’s that working out for you so far?
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) issued a letter urging Wisconsin to drop the VPN ban provisions. From the EFF:
The short version? This bill both requires invasive age verification for websites that host content lawmakers might deem “sexual” and requires that those sites block any user that connects via a Virtual Private Network (VPN). VPNs are a basic cybersecurity tool used by businesses, universities, journalists, veterans, abuse survivors, and ordinary people who simply don’t want to broadcast their location to every website they visit.
As we lay out in the letter, Wisconsin’s mandate is technically unworkable. Websites cannot reliably determine whether a VPN user is in Wisconsin, a different state, or a different country. So, to avoid liability, websites are faced with an unfortunate choice: either resort to over-blocking IP addresses commonly associated with commercial VPNs, block all Wisconsin users’ access, or mandate nationwide restrictions just to avoid liability.
The bill also creates a privacy nightmare. It pushes websites to collect sensitive personal data (e.g. government IDs, financial information, biometric identifiers) just to access lawful speech. At the same time, it broadens the definition of material deemed “harmful to minors” far beyond the narrow categories courts have historically allowed states to regulate. The definition goes far beyond the narrow categories historically recognized by courts (namely, explicit adult sexual materials) and instead sweeps in material that merely describes sex or depicts human anatomy. This approach invites over-censorship, chills lawful speech, and exposes websites to vague and unpredictable enforcement. That combination—mass data collection plus vague, expansive speech restrictions—is a recipe for over-censorship, data breaches, and constitutional overreach.
In a rare moment in the world of technology, there was some bit of good news. Reports have indicated that Wisconsin lawmakers have decided to drop the VPN ban provisions. From Tech Radar:
Wisconsin lawmakers have scrapped a controversial VPN ban from an age-verification bill following backlash from residents and digital rights experts.
First introduced in March 2025, Senate Bill 130 (and its Assembly counterpart AB 105) originally required any provider distributing “harmful” material to minors to block all users connecting via a VPN.
Republican Senator Van Wanggaard moved to strike the provision on Wednesday, February 19. The amendment also added “virtual service provider” to the bill’s final paragraphs to clarify that VPN firms themselves are not liable under the law. The Senate welcomed the change, and the Assembly concurred the following day, sending the bill to the Governor’s desk for signing.
The move marks a significant victory for privacy in the state and follows an open letter from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) that labeled the original proposal a “spectacularly bad idea.”
“It’s great news. Politicians heard VPN users’ worries and fears in Wisconsin, how a ban just wouldn’t work, and removed that section,” Rindala “Rin” Alajaji, Associate Director of State Affairs at EFF, told TechRadar.
Alajaji warns that the broader bill remains problematic, citing potential privacy violations, security risks, and restrictions on free speech.
Indeed, it’s still a bad bill, but scrapping the VPN provisions does improve the bill from being a spectacularly bad bill to a really bad bill. Still, these days, we can take any bit of good news we can get our hands on.
Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.
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