Louisiana bill would bring biometric age checks to bars

Louisiana bill would bring biometric age checks to bars Louisiana state Sen. Beth Mizell has introduced legislation, SB 499, that would create a new biometric age verification system for people entering premises licensed to serve alcohol, replacing sole reliance on physical or digital IDs with a credential tied to a live facial match. The proposal, titled the “Madison Brooks Law,” would add a new subsection to Louisiana’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Law and would take effect Aug. 1 if enacted. Louisiana’s bill is the clearest example of a proposed bar-entry biometric age-assurance system requiring a QR-linked credential and live facial match before entry. The bill is a response to the January 15, 2023, death of 19-year-old Madison Brooks, who died after being served alcohol underage using another person’s identification. The bill says, “physical and digital identification remain vulnerable to transfer and forgery.” SB 499 would define a “certified biometrically bound age assurance credential” as a digital or physical credential issued by the commissioner of the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control. The credential would have to establish or verify a person’s age or age eligibility in compliance with National Institute of Standards and Technology Digital Identity Guidelines, be cryptographically bound to one or more biometric identifiers so it cannot be transferred or shared, and meet applicable age assurance, identity-proofing and security standards. Under the bill, a credential presented in a digital wallet or printed form would have to be accepted by any alcohol permittee as lawful proof of age when its QR code is scanned and a live facial match confirms the holder. The proposal says the system would bind a verified 21-and-over indicator to a one-way facial biometric template inside a tamper-proof QR code. It further states that the facial biometric could not be reverse engineered into an image or