‘A waste of money’ — Digital rights group slams Utah’s new ‘impossible by design’ VPN restrictions under controversial age verification law
Publish Date: 2026-05-07 10:14:00
Source Domain: www.techradar.com
- Utah’s SB 73 law targeting VPN users has officially gone into effect
- Fight for the Future has slammed the legislation as a “waste of money”
- The digital rights group also argues it’s “impossible by design” to enforce
Utah is making history as the first US state to enact a law specifically targeting virtual private networks, but digital rights advocates are furious.
The legislation, known as SB 73, officially went into effect on May 6. It aims to crack down on residents utilizing the VPN services to bypass state age verification mandates.
However, digital rights group Fight for the Future is pulling no punches. In a fiery statement shared with TechRadar, the group dubbed the law “a waste of money,” while slamming the state for passing legislation that fundamentally misunderstands how the internet works.
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“Utah just became the first state in the US to target VPN usage, and they are embarrassing themselves,” stated Lia Holland, Campaigns and Communications Director at Fight for the Future.
Last year, Fight for the Future launched a major initiative to defend VPN access, highlighting that everyone from abuse survivors to small businesses relies on these tools to stay secure.
What is the Utah VPN law and why are experts so angry?
The bill’s most controversial element is Section 14, which explicitly states that individuals are considered to be accessing a website from Utah if they are physically there, “regardless of whether the individual is using a virtual private network, proxy server, or other means to disguise or misrepresent the individual’s geographic location to make it appear that the individual is accessing a website from a location outside this state.”
According to Holland, these requirements have “paragraphs that read like AI slop” because they mandate the impossible.
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