Age Verification
Every bill we’re tracking on age verification, with clear summaries of its provisions, status, and effects.
Explore US age-verification laws
See which states have proposed, enacted, or blocked age-check laws.
Utah SB 73 (VPN Age Verification)
Utah's update to its adult-site age check law counts anyone physically in Utah as a Utah user even behind a VPN, bans sites from explaining VPNs, and adds a 2% tax on adult content sales.
Tennessee SB 1792 (Age Verification)
Tennessee's adult-site age check, the rare one that makes a failed verification a felony.
16 & Up Social Media Act
Would exclude under-16s from covered social platforms and pressure services to determine users' ages, threatening anonymous participation and lawful speech.
California Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043)
Turns every California device into an age checkpoint, making the operating system label users by age before apps are allowed to treat them normally.
UK Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026
Gives ministers a standing route to impose age gates, curfews, and feature restrictions across the internet after Parliament nearly approved VPN checks and device scanning.
California Under-16 Social Media Ban (AB 1709)
Uses California's device-level age system to decide who may use ordinary social-media features, forcing an age check onto everyone in the name of restricting under-16s.
California Companion Chatbot Safety Bill (SB 1119)
Forces chatbot services to age-classify every user or put everyone into a state-defined child mode, tying private conversations to California's growing identity system.
California Age-Estimation and Child Design Law (AB 2246)
Orders services likely to attract children to estimate users' ages or treat everyone as a child, turning a law advertised as privacy protection into another mass-classification mandate.
Australia Social Media Minimum Age Enforcement Bill
Expands eSafety’s information-gathering powers and doubles maximum civil penalties under Australia’s social media minimum-age framework.
RESET Act / GUARDIAN Act
Amended in subcommittee to require parental consent for processing under-16s' data, raising concerns about age checks and online privacy.
Tennessee HB 1891 (Social Media)
Makes social media platforms verify the age of every account holder in Tennessee and get a parent's consent before anyone under 18 can sign up.
Missouri Adult-Site Age Verification (HB 1839 and 15 CSR 60-18)
Missouri first imposed its adult-content ID check by Attorney General rule, then put the same checkpoint into state law through HB 1839.
Virginia SB 854 (Social Media)
Makes social media platforms screen every Virginia user's age and holds under-16s to one hour a day, now blocked by a federal court.
New Zealand Social Media Minimum Age Bill
New Zealand's under-16 ban would cover any platform with recommender feeds, endless scroll, likes, or disappearing stories, and would let a regulator order app stores and internet providers to cut the country off from a platform entirely.
Ohio Parental Notification Act
Ohio's under-16 parental-consent law remains blocked while the appeals court’s mandate is stayed to allow NetChoice to seek Supreme Court review.
New Jersey Kids Code Act
New Jersey's version of California's design code sets strict defaults for users a platform knows are minors, and its broad definition of knowing gives platforms a reason to check ages.
Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA)
Would make platforms police content for minors, which in practice pushes them to age-verify every user.
Youth AI Privacy Act
Forces AI chatbot makers to treat any user they think is a minor differently. The EFF warns this pushes services toward age checks anyway.
CHATBOT Act
Would make AI chatbot apps tie under-13 accounts to a parent account and get parental consent for teens. It leans on age checks and stores kids' chats for parents to read.
Parental Approval for Youth Social Media Act of 2026
Would make social-media accounts for under-16s depend on verified parental permission, pressuring platforms to classify every user by age and connect children’s accounts to verified adults.
Illinois HB 5511 (Device Age Signal and Minor Defaults)
Illinois makes device makers, operating systems and app stores ask a user's age at setup and pass that self-declared age to social media platforms as a signal, which then triggers default restrictions for minors.
New York SAFE for Kids Act
New York's ban on addictive feeds for minors. The attorney general's rules will decide how every New Yorker proves their age.
Texas SCOPE Act (HB 18)
Requires parental consent and content controls for under-18s on digital services, partly blocked by the courts. Separate from the Texas porn-site law.
Nebraska Parental Rights in Social Media Act (LB 383)
Nebraska's social media age-check law was blocked days before taking effect. The part that survived forces platforms to hand parents their kids' private messages.
Digital Age Assurance Act
Would put age checks in every operating system sold in America. You set your age bracket at setup, and apps must use it.
Nebraska Age-Appropriate Online Design Code (LB 504)
Nebraska's kids code took effect in January, and the attorney general's power to sue over it switched on July 1.
Massachusetts Addictive Feeds Bill (S.3175)
Massachusetts would switch off addictive feeds, autoplay, infinite scroll and overnight notifications for minors by default, and hand the attorney general the job of deciding how platforms work out who is a minor.
Maryland Kids Code (HB 603)
Maryland's copy of California's design code has been in force since 2024 while NetChoice tries to kill it in court.
Texas App Store Accountability Act (SB 2420)
Makes Apple and Google age-check every Texan who opens an app store account. In force after the Supreme Court declined to block it.
Idaho HB 542 (Addictive Social Media)
Makes billion-dollar social media platforms estimate the age of Idaho users after heavy use, then treat anyone who reads as 16 or under as a child needing parental consent.
Iowa HF 864 (Adult-Site Age Verification)
Iowa requires sites and apps where a third or more of the content is pornographic for minors to verify users' ages, including through digital ID.
North Carolina HB 301 (Social Media & AI Safety)
The Senate version of North Carolina HB 301 bans social media accounts for children under 14 and makes platforms verify users' ages, and the bill now sits in a conference committee.
New Jersey Online Age Verification Bill (A5305)
New Jersey would require websites and other online services carrying covered sexual material to verify every visitor is at least 18.
West Virginia HB 4412 (Adult-Site Age Verification)
West Virginia requires adult sites and apps to verify users are 18 or older, names WV Mobile ID as an approved method, and lets parents sue for $10,000 per incident.
Canada Bill C-34 (Safe Social Media Act)
Canada's under-16 social media ban plus a new Digital Safety Commission, with the operative details left to regulations. Keeping minors out means age ID checks on every adult.
Arizona HB 2991 (Social Media and App Store Age Checks)
Arizona's HB 2991 started as a social media and adult-site age check bill, then the Senate rewrote it into an app store and operating system age mandate before it stalled.
New York S.9051-B (AI Companion Age Checks)
New York's legislature passed a bill that locks the human-like features of AI companion chatbots until the operator has checked that the user is an adult.
Colorado SB26-051 (Device Age Signal)
Colorado makes operating systems ask for a user's age or birth date at device setup and pass that self-declared age to apps as a signal, which apps must request at first launch.
Oklahoma HB 1275 (Social Media Age Verification)
Oklahoma's House passed a bill that would have barred users under 16 from social media and made platforms verify the age of all account holders.
Connecticut SB 5 (Online Safety, Feed Age Checks)
Connecticut's online safety law bars personalized feeds for any user a platform has not checked is an adult, unless a parent consents, starting in 2028.
Minnesota HF 4138 (Addictive Social Media, Age Estimation)
Minnesota's addictive social media law makes platforms estimate account holders' ages from their activity and treat anyone they cannot place at 16 or older as a child.
New York Safe by Design Act (Age Checks for Social Features)
New York's Safe by Design Act blocks messaging, profile viewing, tagging and other core social features until a platform checks the user's age, and bans self-declared age.
Louisiana App Store Accountability Act (HB 570)
Louisiana's app store age-check law passed without a single no vote. Its start date has slipped to July 2027.
New York S8102 (Device Age Checks)
Would push age verification down to the device, operating system, and app store, so a phone checks your age before its software works normally.
Missouri HB 1887 (Megan Meier Act)
Missouri's House voted 145-3 to make social media platforms verify the age of all Missouri users before they open an account, and to bar under-16s from holding accounts of their own.
California SB 976 (Addictive Feeds)
Bans personalized feeds for minors without parental consent, which means platforms have to work out who is a minor.
New Hampshire SB 648 (Adult Site Age Verification)
New Hampshire's Senate passed a bill making commercial porn sites verify the age of visitors, and the House killed it in May 2026.
Georgia SB 540 (AI Companion Chatbots)
Georgia's AI companion chatbot law requires an age check before a user can reach any chatbot feature that may generate sexually explicit content.
Kansas SB 372 (App Store Accountability Act)
Kansas's SB 372 would have required app stores to verify the age of every Kansas account holder, and it nearly passed inside an unrelated farm theft bill.
Canada Bill S-209 (Age Verification)
Canada's age-verification bill on its third attempt: a criminal offense to serve adult content without age ID checks, with website blocking as the enforcement tool.
Michigan SB 757 (SAFE for Kids Act)
Michigan's SB 757 would bar personalized social media feeds for any user a platform has not age-checked or cleared with parental consent.
Arkansas Acts 900/901 (Social Media, 2025)
Arkansas lost on its first age-verification law, rewrote it as two new ones, and got both blocked again. Now the Eighth Circuit decides.
Alaska HB 47 (Social Media Age Check Amendment)
A House floor amendment turned Alaska's bill on AI-generated child abuse imagery into a social media age verification law, and a Senate committee cut those sections back out.
Massachusetts Under-14 Social Media Ban (H.5366)
The House version would bar under-14s from social media outright, make platforms delete their accounts, require parental consent for 14 and 15 year olds, and ban phones in schools from bell to bell.
California Age-Appropriate Design Code
California's design-code law makes platforms estimate users' ages and reshape their products for minors. Courts have partly blocked it.
Kentucky HB 227 (Social Media Age Estimation)
Kentucky's HB 227 would have made large social media platforms estimate every user's age from the data they already hold, and treat users as under 16 until proven otherwise.
Wisconsin AB 105 / SB 130 (Age Verification)
Wisconsin's age-verification bill tried to make adult sites block VPN users. The VPN ban was stripped after backlash, then the whole bill died with the session.
Wisconsin AB 962 / SB 937 (App Store Age Verification)
Wisconsin's Assembly passed an app store bill that would have required age verification for all accounts and parental consent for a minor's downloads.
Utah App Store Accountability Act
The first state law making app stores verify the age of everyone, and the template the federal bill and other states copied.
Florida SB 1722 (App Store Accountability Act)
Florida's SB 1722 would have required app stores to verify the age of every Florida account holder and get parental consent for minors' downloads.
Washington SB 5708 / HB 1834 (Addictive Feeds)
Washington's Attorney General-requested bill would have required addictive-feed services to estimate users' ages and withhold personalized feeds from anyone not shown to be an adult.
Georgia SB 351 (Social Media and Adult Sites)
Bars under-16s from social media without a parent's consent and makes adult sites verify every visitor's age. The social media half is blocked; the adult-site half is in force.
Australia Online Safety Act 2021
The law behind the eSafety Commissioner: takedown powers over global platforms, and industry codes now switching on age checks at search engines, app stores, and the devices themselves.
Indiana HEA 1408 (Social Media, Under-16 Consent)
Indiana's social media law makes large platforms keep estimating users' ages as they log hours, and shuts down under-16 accounts that lack parental consent.
South Dakota HB 1275 (App Store Age Verification)
South Dakota's House passed an app store bill requiring age verification for all accounts, and a Senate committee killed it by one vote.
Alabama App Store Accountability Act (HB 161)
Alabama's app store law goes further than the others: every existing account must be age-verified, not just new ones.
South Carolina Age-Appropriate Design Code (H.3431)
The fifth state kids code, and the harshest: effective the day it was signed, treble damages, and personal liability for employees.
Mississippi HB 1126 (Social Media)
Requires age verification and parental consent to use social media, now in force after the Supreme Court declined to block it.
Louisiana Act 456 (Social Media Age Checks)
Louisiana's social media age-check law, permanently struck down in December 2025. The state is appealing.
Australia Social Media Minimum Age Act
The world's first under-16 social media ban, in force: ten platforms must keep minors out or face fines near A$50 million, and parental consent is no defense.
Florida HB 3 (Social Media and Adult Sites)
Bars under-14s from social media, requires parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds, and makes adult sites verify every visitor's age.
Alabama SB 186 (Device Filter, Age Asked at Setup)
Alabama requires new phones and tablets to ask the user's age at activation and to switch on an obscenity filter automatically when the stated age is under 18.
Ohio HB 96 (Age Verification)
Ohio's adult-site age check, tucked into the state budget bill after a standalone version stalled.
Arizona HB 2112 (Age Verification)
Arizona's 2025 adult-site age check, with damages that climb to $250,000 if a minor gets through.
Michigan HB 4938 (ISP Filtering and VPN Ban)
Would force ISPs to filter the internet statewide and block VPNs, proxies, and encrypted tunnels. Parked in committee, but it is the blueprint.
North Dakota HB 1561 (Age Verification)
North Dakota's 2025 adult-site age check, passed without a single no vote in either chamber.
UK Online Safety Act
The broadest attack on free speech and privacy any Western democracy has passed: age checks to use the internet, a state regulator over online speech, criminal penalties for posts, and a standby power to scan private messages.
Wyoming HB 43 (Age Verification)
Wyoming's 2025 adult-site age check, with a flat $5,000 in statutory damages for each failed verification.
South Dakota HB 1053 (Age Verification)
South Dakota's 2025 adult-site age check, enforced with criminal charges that escalate to a felony for repeat offenders.
Texas HB 1181 (Age Verification)
Requires age verification to view adult content, the law the Supreme Court used to greenlight online ID checks.
Indiana SB 17 (Age Verification)
Indiana's adult-site age check, in force since an appeals court stayed the 2024 injunction against it.
Vermont Age-Appropriate Design Code (S.69)
Vermont's kids code, signed June 2025, takes effect January 2027 with the attorney general writing the rules now.
Connecticut HB 6857 (Social Media Feeds and Minors)
Connecticut's HB 6857 would have blocked personalized social media feeds for anyone a platform had not age-checked or cleared with parental consent.
Texas HB 186 (Under-18 Social Media Ban)
The Texas House voted to bar everyone under 18 from social media and to make platforms verify that new account holders are adults.
Alabama SB 187 (App Store Accountability Act, 2025)
Alabama's first app store age verification bill passed the Senate in 2025, stalled in a House committee, and came back in 2026 as HB 161, which became law.
App Store Accountability Act
Would make Apple and Google verify the age of everyone using their app stores, including adults, and confirm a parent's identity.
Colorado SB25-201 (Age Checks for Online Sexual Materials)
Colorado's SB25-201 would have required adult sites to verify the age of every visitor and uploader, and it died when the Senate kept putting off a floor vote.
Arkansas Social Media Safety Act (SB 396)
Arkansas's social media age-verification law, struck down in full as unconstitutional. The state came back with a rewrite.
SCREEN Act
Would require age verification to view adult content, and explicitly targets VPNs so people can't bypass it.
Kids Off Social Media Act (KOSMA)
Would ban under-13s from social media and require platforms to know users' ages to enforce it.
Oklahoma SB 1959 (Age Verification)
Oklahoma's adult-site age check, another 2024 private-lawsuit law that the Supreme Court's 2025 Texas ruling left standing.
Alabama HB 164 (Age Verification)
Alabama's adult-site age check, backed by both a $10,000 state penalty and private lawsuits, with a ban on keeping the ID.
Utah Minor Protection in Social Media Act (SB 194)
Utah's social media age-check law, the one that started the state wave, blocked in court since 2024.
Nebraska LB 1092 (Age Verification)
Nebraska's adult-site age check, passed by the state's one-house legislature and enforced through private lawsuits.
Kentucky HB 278 (Age Verification)
Kentucky's adult-site age check, with a $10,000 penalty for each failed verification and $1,000 a day for keeping a user's ID.
Idaho HB 498 (Age Verification)
Idaho's 2024 adult-site age check, with statutory damages baked in so a plaintiff need not prove a dollar of harm.
Kansas SB 394 (Age Verification)
Kansas's adult-site age check, notable for a lower 25 percent content trigger and both state fines and private lawsuits.
South Carolina H 3424 (Child Online Safety Act)
South Carolina's adult-site age check, the Child Online Safety Act, which took effect the moment the governor signed it.
EU Digital Identity Wallet (eIDAS 2.0)
Requires EU member states to offer a European Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet by the end of 2026; use by individuals is voluntary under the law.
Montana SB 544 (Age Verification)
Montana's adult-site age check, carried by a Democrat and later stripped of its state enforcement, leaving only private lawsuits.
North Carolina HB 8 (PAVE Act)
North Carolina's adult-site age check, the PAVE Act, slipped into a larger bill and enforced through two kinds of private lawsuit.
Arkansas SB 66 (Age Verification)
Arkansas's 2023 adult-content age check, Act 612, enforced entirely by private lawsuits.
Mississippi SB 2346 (Age Verification)
Mississippi's 2023 adult-content age check, the porn-site law that came a year before the state's social media mandate.
Virginia SB 1515 (Age Verification)
Virginia's 2023 adult-site age check, built as pure civil liability with no regulator and no criminal charge.
Utah SB 287 (Age Verification)
One of the first state laws to make adult sites verify a visitor is 18, enforced by private lawsuits rather than a state agency.
Louisiana HB 142 (Age Verification)
The first age-verification law for adult content, the 2022 Louisiana bill that every other state copied.
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