COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohioans will need to submit their photo ID to watch pornography beginning this fall, with explicit content giant PornHub likely to consider pulling out of providing content to the state.
If you can imagine it, there’s a video for it — all for your viewing pleasure.
"We are expressing and practicing our sexual activity in a way that is private and is healthy and is unique to us," Clevelander Mallory McMaster said.
But starting at the end of September, McMaster said she will have to find a new way to express her sexuality.
"Creating a log of the pornography that we watch is not a direction that we want to go in as a country," she said.
To crack down on kids and teens accessing porn, state Reps. Josh Williams (R-Sylvania) and Steve Demetriou (R-Bainbridge Twp.) put a provision in the budget, requiring every porn watcher to provide age verification.
"We're gonna preserve and protect the innocence of our kids here in the state of Ohio," William said Monday.
Verification would be done by submitting a photo of your state ID or by entering your personal information into a third-party system that will then run your details through other online or government databases — it could also use facial recognition technology, capturing photos of users. Companies would be penalized if they don't comply.
"Shut down that website if necessary," he added.
Attorney General Dave Yost will be able to file civil lawsuits against companies, which could lead to court injunctions, Williams said.
The language, starting on page 655 of House Bill 96, states that an establishment that is primarily centered on explicit content and makes a significant amount of money on said content will need to follow this law. However, others that host pornography may still be subject to the law.
News media organizations, cable and streaming providers have an explicit exemption. Williams said that this won't impact social media sites like X (formerly known as Twitter) and Reddit.
McMaster fears that data could be leaked. In 2024, hackers have stolen medical, financial, and legal data from at least hundreds of thousands of Ohioans at both the state and local levels. Many of the reported cyberattacks do not state how many consumers have been impacted.
Lawmakers argue that companies would be required to have a system that protects and deletes sensitive information immediately after verification. If someone is a paid subscriber, then their information must be deleted two years after the creation date if the user doesn't renew.
Williams says if adults are worried, they can avoid online sites.
"You can go on and purchase your old school DVDs and watch your pornography at home," Williams said, adding that this is simply like walking into an old video rental store where consumers are ID'd at the entrance or cash register. "We will not sacrifice the innocence of our children for the inconvenience of adults."
The law also has a provision that uses geofences and geolocation to block users, with Williams saying this will make it harder to use virtual private networks, or VPNs, which mask your IP address and let you bypass firewalls.
The "location-based tech provider" would "dynamically monitor" a user attempting to access a website. If the provider determines the individual lives in Ohio, they must block them.
When we previously spoke to McMaster, she talked about her fears that local law enforcement would get access to search histories, since some third-party companies secretly provide facial recognition data to police, according to The Brookings Institution.
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PornHub, the most visited explicit content provider in the country, and its parent company, Aylo, previously gave us a statement about states that have implemented these requirements, saying in part: “People did not stop looking for porn. They just migrated to darker corners of the internet that don't ask users to verify age, that don't follow the law, that don't take user safety seriously, and that often don't even moderate content."
Aylo explained that they have always been a supporter of age verification of users, but that parents can add parental controls to their kids' devices.
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Because the U.S. Supreme Court decided that Texas’s similar requirement is constitutional, Pornhub has removed some of its sites in states with age verification laws. As of publishing, they have pulled out of 17 states.
"Unfortunately, the way many jurisdictions worldwide have chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous," Aylo said. "Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy."
McMaster said that there are too many websites to track down, and this could drive traffic to providers that don't have regulations on the ages of performers, the ability to take down sexual assault or nonconsensual content, and nonconsensual artificial intelligence like PornHub does.
"We're actually going to make it harder to keep people watching healthy pornography," she said.
Either way, Ohioans need to get their IDs ready starting on Sept. 29.
Follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau on Twitter and Facebook.
