Virginia SB 1515 (Age Verification)

Virginia, United StatesVA SB 1515Updated July 1, 2023

100%became law
Bad for your rightsLaw
  1. Introduced
  2. Passed Senate
  3. Passed House
  4. Became Law

In force

Virginia's 2023 adult-site age check, built as pure civil liability with no regulator and no criminal charge.

Latest update

Took effect

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The bill

Read the full billOfficial bill record

Key facts

Where
Virginia, United States
Bill number
VA SB 1515
Status
Law
Threat
High
Last update
July 1, 2023

Topics

Age VerificationDigital ID

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What it does

Virginia SB 1515 creates civil liability for any commercial site where more than a third of the content is harmful to minors that fails to verify a visitor is 18. Age is proved through a commercial database or another commercially reasonable method reading government ID. A person harmed sues for damages and attorney fees.

What’s at stake

Virginia leaned entirely on private lawsuits, so the deterrent is the threat of being sued rather than a fine from Richmond. The result is the same for a user: an adult site that has to check ID is an adult site that can log who showed it.

Our take

Two years before SB 854 tried to age-gate social media, Virginia had already gated adult sites with SB 1515. The state built the porn-site checkpoint first, found it survived, and came back for the rest of the internet.

Timeline

  1. Took effectLatest

  2. Signed into law

The record

Sponsor

Sen. Bill Stanley

Votes

  • Senate: Passed (37 to 3), February 7, 2023
  • House: Passed (96 to 0), February 23, 2023