SALT LAKE CITY—Last night, NetChoice sent a letter to Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, requesting that he veto two bills from the legislature. While the legislature was well intentioned, Utah’s SB 152 and HB 311 are unconstitutional and will force businesses to collect children’s sensitive personal data, endangering their safety online.
“Given their risks to children’s data privacy and unconstitutionality, we ask Gov. Cox to veto both HB 311 and SB 152,” said NetChoice Vice President & General Counsel Carl Szabo. “These bills’ shared goal to protect children from harmful content is laudable and one that NetChoice supports. But the chosen means are not only unconstitutional, they require businesses to collect sensitive information about all Utahns, putting everyone, even children, at risk.”
Szabo continued: “Further, both bills are unconstitutional as they infringe on adults’ lawful access to constitutional speech—a regulation which Congress already tried and the Supreme Court has already repudiated.”
NetChoice asked Gov. Cox to veto both HB 311 and SB 152 because they:
- Violate the First Amendment by banning anonymous speech;
- Violate the First Amendment by infringing on adults’ lawful access to constitutionally-protected speech, and;
- Endanger children by requiring them to share their sensitive personally identifiable information, which creates risks that it will be captured and misused by malefactors.
You can read NetChoice’s letter to Gov. Cox here.
Please contact Krista Chavez at press@netchoice.org with inquiries.