Court agrees with EFF: Utah's VPN law demands a technical impossibility
A federal judge has issued an injunction against a Utah law that required age verification for adult websites and restricted the use of VPNs. The court ruled that the law imposed technical impossibilities and unconstitutionally burdened users outside of Utah.
Why it matters
This ruling serves as a significant precedent for digital privacy rights, limiting the ability of individual states to impose broad internet regulations that affect global users.
When state lawmakers attempt to rewrite how the internet works, users rely on courts to recognize that laws can’t make technical impossibilities a reality. That’s why we were happy to see that a court has blocked Utah’s attempt to outlaw the privacy protections of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).
In a win for digital rights, a federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction blocking Utah’s SB 73, the state’s draconian anti-VPN age verification law . The decision comes as EFF submitted our comments to the Utah Department of Commerce, detailing how forcing platforms to detect and block privacy-preserving tools undermines user privacy and security worldwide while demanding the impossible.
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