Age Verification in the United States
Comply with age verification laws across 24+ US states while meeting PII-retention prohibitions. Privacy-preserving verification validated by SCOTUS.
Regulatory Context
The Supreme Court upheld age verification requirements in FSC v. Paxton (606 U.S. 461, 27 June 2025, 6-3), applying intermediate scrutiny. Adults have no First Amendment right to avoid age verification for content obscene to minors.
Approximately 24 states now enforce adult-content age verification laws, following the Louisiana/PAVE Act template. Key states include TX, LA, VA, UT, NC, MT, IN, AZ, OH, TN, and WY. Most laws set a 33% content threshold, accept government ID or third-party verification, include private right of action, and explicitly prohibit PII retention.
Texas penalties reach $10,000/day for noncompliance plus $10,000/day for illegal PII retention. Arizona uniquely prohibits transmission of identifying data to any government entity.
How Passtru Complies
Passtru's attestation model is structurally aligned with US state PII-retention prohibitions. For age verification, no personal data is transferred to or retained by the service provider. The platform receives only a binary attestation confirming age eligibility.
This approach satisfies the explicit PII-retention prohibitions in approximately 20 US states while meeting the verification requirements upheld by SCOTUS. The privacy-preserving architecture eliminates the data liability that has caused platforms to exit markets entirely.
Technical Implementation
Integration follows the standard Passtru SDK pattern. The age verification endpoint returns a signed attestation without personal data. Platforms can verify the attestation cryptographically without storing any user information.
For multi-state compliance, a single Passtru integration satisfies requirements across all enforcing jurisdictions. No state-by-state configuration is needed.
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Get started with Passtru's privacy-first verification for United States.