- Ohio is ready to enforce mandatory age verification from 30 September 2025
- Citizens have to prove their age every time they wish to access content that is considered “obscene or harmful to young people”
- Ohio joins over 20 US states in enforcing some form of mandatory age verification requirements
Ohio has joined the list of states for age sports some types of content in the name of children’s online security.
From Tuesday, September 30, 2025, Ohio citizens are obliged to prove that they are over 18 years of age to access only adult sites and other platforms that host “obscene or harmful to young people.”
This means that both adults and minors must be ready to share their most sensitive information with these online services to provide access. A requirement that has pushed users into other jurisdictions against the best VPN apps to protect their privacy and security.
Ohio follows Arizona and over 20 more US states in the passed a form of age verification law.
So far, these new obligations have given rise to a debate about the balance between children’s digital security and privacy.
Ohio’s Age Verification Act – a long -awaited milestone
Ohio’s Age Verification Act comes as a milestone that legislators have been trying to pass for years. Nevertheless, after reinstating the provision this summer in its over 3,000-page long budget bill, mandatory age verification was finally approved in June. Two months later, that’s the law.
According to Ohio HB 96’s provision, citizens must submit a photo IID or transaction data, such as employment or education registers, to provide access to content considered “obscene or harmful to young people.” For current accounts, platforms must verify users’ ages every two years.
As a senior policy and advocate on the Internet Society, John Perrino told Techradar, while it is reasonable to require adult sites and social media platforms to take measures to prevent children from reaching explicit content, these types of laws also make people vulnerable to privacy and security risks.
He said, “It is another thing to completely demand that everyone in a state survive an ID and risk their online privacy and security to access legal material.”
Critics are also concerned that the vague wording about what constitutes “harmful” content may also end up censoring important resources online, such as health or sexual education material.
All in all, Perrino believes that the requirements for age verification do not keep people on safety on their own.
“Age -based security measures that provide standard protection and give people control over the type of content they want to see are better alternatives,” he added.
“A geofence system”
Online service providers are also required to use “a geofence system” to monitor the geolocation for all Internet users trying to access age -gated content.
This means that when users’ location shows Ohio, online platforms must block the content until “a person’s age has been verified using reasonable age verification methods.”
While an IP address is not the only detail that can be used to determine a person’s location online, it is definitely the most widely used.
If this is the case in Ohio, bypassing tools such as a virtual private network (VPN) can enable citizens to look like they are browsing from a completely different place and bypassing any of these geo-limitations.
The lightweight circumvention of mandatory age control is precisely the reason why Michigan is also targeting VPN use with its new proposed adult content. A result that would further bring American rights to privacy and security.
In comments on this point, Nordvpn’s privacy lawyer, Laura Tyryryte, told Techradar: “Limiting access to these technologies not only jeopardizing individual freedoms, but also puts a worrying precedent for increased government control over the open internet.”
While Ohio’s law does not include any VPN blocking requirements, this may change if VPNs should end up making this provision ineffective.
