Indiana's Age Verification Bill: By Sen. Mike Bohacek

Indianapolis, Indiana — This week, Republican state senator Mike Bohacek submitted an age verification measure to the Indiana legislature. It is essentially a carbon duplicate of the many age verification legislation that religious conservatives and anti-porn activists are pushing around the nation.

Bohacek filed his measure ahead of the 2024 legislative session; it is now known as Preliminary Draft No. 3021.

News reports indicate that “Ways to verify a person's age include a mobile credential, an independent third-party service, and any commercially reasonable method that relies on public or private transactional data."

Bohacek's draft differs from the other conservative bills it was modeled after by threatening felony prosecutions for operators of "adult-oriented websites" that are accessible in Indiana if they do not provide the state government with sufficient age verification.

Bohacek's language states that “an adult-oriented website operator who knowingly or intentionally publishes an adult-oriented website without using a reasonable age verification method commits ‘allowing a child to access Internet pornography,' a Class A misdemeanor.”

After the first conviction, the new law would raise the sentence to a Level 6 felony.

"These verification methods aren't restricting the rights of legal adults, just tightening the law to ensure kids don't access harmful material.” asserted the Republican senator.

Indianapolis Criminal Defense Attorney Mark Nicholson shared his opinions regarding Indiana's anti-porn bill. 

"Regardless of your opinion on porn, it is a very dangerous precedent for the government to arrest people for exercising their right to free speech," stated attorney Nicholson.  We have seen time and time again that the two most popular methods used by governments to restrict liberties are inciting fears of terrorism or sexual liberation. Supporters of these types of broad restrictions believe that it will never happen to them. But it will when they have a belief or stance that is unpopular," attorney Nicholson said.

Attorney Mark Nicholson said that he does not support children having access to adult material. However, the way this law and similar laws are being written is just an attempt to ban all adult content online.