 |
ARIZONA STATE SENATE
Fifty-Sixth Legislature, Second Regular Session
internet; material harmful to minors.
Purpose
Establishes, for commercial entities that distribute a substantial portion of material harmful to minors on the internet, age verification requirements, processes and liabilities.
Background
It is unlawful for a person, with knowledge of the
character of the item involved, to:
1) recklessly furnish, present, provide, make available, give, lend, show,
advertise or distribute to a minor any item that is harmful to minors,
excluding the transmission or sending of items over the internet; or 2)
intentionally or knowingly transmit or send to a minor by means of electronic
mail, personal messaging or any other direct internet communication an item
that is harmful to minors when the person knows or believes at the time of the transmission
that a minor will receive the item, excluding posting material on an internet
web site, bulletin board or newsgroup or sending material via mailing list or
listserv that is not administered by the sender. A violation of either offense
is a class 4 felony and a failure to report a violation is a class 6 felony
(A.R.S.
§§ 13-3506
and 13-3506.01)
There is no anticipated fiscal impact to the state General Fund associated with this legislation.
Provisions
1. Requires a commercial entity that intentionally or knowingly publishes or distributes material harmful to minors on the internet from a website that contains a substantial portion of such material to verify that any person attempting to access the material is at least 18 years old.
2. Determines that a substantial portion is more than 33.33 percent of the total material on a website.
3. Allows a commercial entity to verify a person's age either:
a) by comparing the internet protocol (IP) address with IP address blacklists; or
b) through any other commercially reasonable method of age and identity verification.
4. Grants an internet user with a minor child the right to submit a request to the user's internet service provider to have one or more of the user's IP addresses added to, or removed from, a blacklist.
5. Precludes an internet service provider from any obligation to confirm that a requesting internet user has a minor child.
6. Subjects a commercial entity that violates the age verification requirement to civil liability for damages resulting from a minor's access to material harmful to minors, including reasonable attorney fees and costs.
7. Specifies that the outlined requirements do not impose an obligation or a liability on a provider or user of an interactive computer service on the internet.
8. Defines material harmful to minors as any description or representation of nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement or sadomasochistic abuse that:
a) appeals to the prurient, shameful or morbid interest of minors;
b) is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable material for minors; and
c) is, when taken as a whole, lacking in serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors.
9. Defines interactive computer service as any information service, system or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including a service or system that provides access to the internet and systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions.
10. Defines terms.
11. Makes conforming changes.
12. Becomes effective on the general effective date.
Prepared by Senate Research
February 7, 2024
KJA/mg