RELEASE: To Protect Children, Gottheimer Introduces New Bipartisan Bill Requiring Facial Recognition Age Verification for Online Sportsbooks
Representative Gottheimer has introduced a bipartisan bill that would require online sportsbooks to use facial recognition technology to verify that users are of legal age before allowing them to place bets. The legislation is framed as a child protection measure targeting the online sports gambling industry.
Why this matters: The goal is real: keeping kids off gambling sites is a reasonable thing to want. But facial recognition is a significant tool to reach for. Every adult who wants to bet would have to submit biometric data to a private gambling platform to prove their age. That data does not disappear after verification. It can be stored, sold, breached, or handed to law enforcement. There are ways to verify age without collecting a face scan from millions of people. The question is whether lawmakers considered those options before picking the most invasive one.
Who should care: Privacy officers · Cybersecurity · General readers · Policy
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