Age Verification
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.
Ohio Parental Notification Act
Struck down in 2025, revived on appeal in June. Ohio's under-16 parental consent law is back in force.
Massachusetts Social Media Bill (S2581)
Would bar under-14s from social media in Massachusetts and check the age of everyone to enforce it. The House and Senate passed rival versions and now have to reconcile them.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
California SB 976 (Addictive Feeds)
Bans personalized feeds for minors without parental consent, which means platforms have to work out who is a minor.
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.
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.
UK Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026
The schools bill that became the vehicle for VPN bans and device scanning. Those fell out; the power for ministers to impose online restrictions by regulation survived.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Georgia SB 351 (Social Media)
Bars under-16s from social media without a parent's consent and requires age verification, blocked by a federal court the month before it was to start.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Missouri AG Rule 15 CSR 60-18
Missouri's adult-content age check written not as a statute but as an Attorney General rule, and drawn wide enough to name social media.
Florida HB 3 (Social Media)
Bars under-14s from social media and requires parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds, enforced now while the courts fight over it.
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.
California Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043)
Puts the age check inside the operating system: every device set up in California reports an age bracket to every app.
Ohio HB 96 (Adult Content)
Ohio's adult-site age check, tucked into the state budget bill after a standalone version stalled.
Arizona HB 2112 (Adult Content)
Arizona's 2025 adult-site age check, with damages that climb to $250,000 if a minor gets through.
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.
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 (Adult Content)
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 (Adult Content)
Wyoming's 2025 adult-site age check, with a flat $5,000 in statutory damages for each failed verification.
South Dakota HB 1053 (Adult Content)
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 (Adult Content)
Indiana's adult-site age check, blocked as unconstitutional in 2024 before the Supreme Court's Texas ruling knocked the ground out from under that block.
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.
Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA)
Would make platforms police content for minors, which in practice pushes them to age-verify every user.
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.
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.
Tennessee SB 1792 (Adult Content)
Tennessee's adult-site age check, the rare one that makes a failed verification a felony.
Oklahoma SB 1959 (Adult Content)
Oklahoma's adult-site age check, another 2024 private-lawsuit law that the Supreme Court's 2025 Texas ruling left standing.
Alabama HB 164 (Adult Content)
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 (Adult Content)
Nebraska's adult-site age check, passed by the state's one-house legislature and enforced through private lawsuits.
Kentucky HB 278 (Adult Content)
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 (Adult Content)
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 (Adult Content)
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 Regulation
Requires every EU member state to offer a digital identity wallet, with rollout due by the end of 2026.
Montana SB 544 (Adult Content)
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 (Adult Content)
Arkansas's 2023 adult-content age check, Act 612, enforced entirely by private lawsuits.
Mississippi SB 2346 (Adult Content)
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 (Adult Content)
Virginia's 2023 adult-site age check, built as pure civil liability with no regulator and no criminal charge.
Utah SB 287 (Adult Content)
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.