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ARIZONA STATE SENATE
Fifty-Seventh Legislature, First Regular Session
internet pornography; minors; age verification
Purpose
Subjects a commercial entity to civil liability for damages if the entity intentionally and knowingly publishes or distributes sexual material that is harmful to minors on the internet without performing a reasonable age verification.
Background
It is unlawful for any person, with knowledge of the character of the item in question, to: 1) recklessly furnish, present, provide, make available, give, lend, show, advertise or distribute to a minor any physical item that is harmful to minors; or 2) intentionally or knowingly transmit or send a minor an item that is harmful to minors by means of electronic mail, personal messaging or any other direct internet communication when the person knows, or believes at the time, that a minor will receive the item, except when 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. ยงยง 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 and knowingly publishes or distributes material on an internet website, including a social media platform, of which more than one-third is sexual material that is harmful to minors, to use reasonable age verification methods to verify that a person who attempts to access the material is at least 18 years old.
2. Requires the commercial entity or a third-party that performs the age verification to require an individual to either:
a) provide a form of digital identification that does not cause, or allow, the individual's identifying information to be transmitted to any government entity; or
b) comply with a commercial age verification system that does not cause, or allow, the individual's identifying information to be transmitted to any government entity and that verifies age using either government-issued identification or a commercially reasonable method that relies on public or private transactional data to verify the age of an individual.
3. Prohibits a commercial entity or a third-party that performs the age verification from:
a) retaining any identifying information of the individual; and
b) causing or allowing any identifying information to be directly or indirectly transmitted to any government entity.
4. Stipulates that the prohibition against providing material harmful to minors does not:
a) apply to a bona fide news or public internet broadcast, website video report or event; or
b) affect the rights of a news gathering organization.
5. Stipulates that an internet service provider, affiliate or subsidiary of an internet service provider, search engine or cloud service provider does not violate the prescribed prohibition by solely providing access or connection to or from a website or other information or content on the internet, or a facility, system or network not under that provider's control, including transmission, downloading, storing or providing access, to the extent that the provider is not responsible for the creation of the content of the communication that constitutes material harmful to minors.
6. States that a parent or guardian of a minor who accesses material harmful to minors has a right of action against the offending party.
7. Allows the court to award a prevailing party any of the following:
a) an amount equal to, but not more than, $10,000 per day that the entity operates an internet website in violation of age verification requirements, and $10,000 per instance when the entity retains identifying information in violation of the prohibition against doing such; and
b) an additional amount not exceeding $250,000 if one or more minors accesses sexual material harmful to minors due to a lack of age verification methods.
8. Requires the court to determine the amount of a civil penalty that is imposed based on the:
a) seriousness of the violation, including the nature, circumstances, extent and gravity of the violation;
b) history of previous violations;
c) amount necessary to deter a future violation;
d) economic effect of a penalty on the entity on whom the penalty will be imposed;
e) entity's knowledge that the act constituted a violation; or
f) any other matter that justice may require.
9. Allows the Attorney General or qui tam plaintiff to recover reasonable and necessary attorney fees and costs that are incurred in an action.
10. Requires all personally identifiable information of users to be redacted prior to production in an action.
11. Defines terms.
12. Becomes effective on the general effective date.
House Action
JUD 1/29/25 DPA 6-3-0-0
3rd Read 2/12/25 44-15-1
Prepared by Senate Research
March 3, 2025
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