Utah's SB 73: A Threat to VPNs and Digital Rights
Utah's Senate Bill 73 is being sold as a tax on online pornography. But buried inside the legislation is something far more troubling: a provision that would make it illegal to use a VPN to bypass content restrictions imposed under local age verification laws. If this bill passes in its current form, it would mark one of the most aggressive moves by a U.S. state to criminalize ordinary privacy tools used by millions of people every day.
This is not just a story about adult content. It is a story about government overreach, the future of VPN use in the United States, and what happens when lawmakers conflate protecting children with controlling how citizens access the internet.
What Does Senate Bill 73 Actually Say?
On the surface, SB 73 targets online pornography through a tax mechanism. But the bill goes much further than revenue collection. It would make it illegal to circumvent content blocks that platforms put in place in response to Utah's age verification requirements. Critically, the bill specifically calls out VPNs as a method of circumvention that would be prohibited.
This is a significant step. Age verification laws have already reshaped how adult content platforms operate in several states, forcing many to implement regional blocks rather than comply with complex verification requirements. What SB 73 adds to this equation is the threat of legal punishment for users who attempt to access that blocked content using privacy tools.
In practice, this means a Utah resident using a VPN for any number of perfectly legitimate reasons, whether for remote work, protecting data on public Wi-Fi, or general privacy, could potentially find themselves on the wrong side of the law simply for browsing the internet through an encrypted connection.
Why This Sets a Dangerous Precedent
Legal experts and civil liberties advocates have been quick to flag the broader implications of SB 73. The problem with legislating against VPN use is that the technology itself is neutral. VPNs do not know why you are using them. They encrypt your traffic and route it through a server in another location. That is the entire function.
When a government criminalizes the use of a privacy tool based on what content it might theoretically allow you to access, it opens the door to something much larger than content regulation. It creates a framework for controlling internet access tools wholesale.
Consider the precedent this sets. If Utah can ban VPN use to bypass adult content restrictions, what stops another state from extending that logic to other categories of restricted content? Political speech, religious material, journalism from certain outlets, health information that contradicts official guidance: the list of potentially "restricted" content categories is not fixed. Once the legal mechanism exists to punish users for circumventing blocks, the scope of what gets blocked can expand quietly over time.
That is not a hypothetical slippery slope. It is the documented pattern of how internet censorship has evolved in countries that started with narrow content restrictions and gradually widened them.
What This Means For You
If you live in Utah, or if you are watching this legislation from another state, here is what you need to understand.
First, SB 73 represents a direct legislative challenge to the right to use privacy tools. This is not a law targeting bad actors. It targets ordinary internet users who choose to encrypt their traffic, a practice that cybersecurity professionals, journalists, lawyers, and businesses recommend as basic digital hygiene.
Second, this bill could influence similar legislation in other states. Lawmakers often watch each other. If SB 73 passes without significant pushback, it creates a template that other states can borrow from.
Third, the framing matters. When governments bundle privacy restrictions inside popular or morally uncontroversial causes (protecting children, in this case), those restrictions are harder to challenge publicly. That is precisely why civil liberties organizations are raising the alarm now, before the bill moves further through the legislative process.
You do not have to have any opinion about online pornography to be concerned about a law that criminalizes VPN use. The two issues are legally and practically separate, even if SB 73 treats them as connected.
Privacy Is Not a Loophole
The right to private communication and unrestricted access to information has always been foundational to free societies. Using a VPN is not cheating the system. It is exercising a legitimate choice to protect your data, your identity, and your browsing habits from third parties, including government entities that may not always have your best interests in mind.
SB 73 treats privacy tools as threats to be neutralized rather than rights to be protected. That framing deserves to be challenged loudly and clearly.
At hide.me, we believe that access to a free and open internet is a fundamental right, not a privilege that governments can revoke state by state. If you want to understand how VPNs work and why protecting your ability to use them matters, [learn more about how VPN encryption keeps your data private](#). Staying informed about legislation like SB 73 is the first step. Supporting organizations that push back on digital rights overreach is the second.
The internet does not have borders. Your right to privacy should not either.