Tennessee became the eleventh state to enact age verification legislation this year on June 3, joining Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma and South Carolina. All together, nineteen states now require pornography companies to check the ages of their online consumers, including Arkansas, Texas, Idaho, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia.

Described by Politico as “perhaps the most bipartisan laws in the country,” age verification laws empower parents to protect their children online by making it harder for kids to access harmful content like pornography.

“Sexually explicit content is harming our children and resulting in a mental health crisis,” Family Foundation of Kentucky explains their support of Kentucky House Bill 241. “We need these bills to help us to protect them.

Age verification bills in California, Delaware and Ohio are inching closer to becoming law. Most of the bills follow the policy recommendations laid out by the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) and the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) in 2022:

  • They require companies who publish a “substantial” amount of adult content — usually 1/3 or more of their total production — to check the age of every person accessing their website.
  • They create a way for parents to sue pornography companies if their kids access content they shouldn’t.

Some states have also added age restrictions to social media — another one of IFS and EPPC’s recommended policies. House Bill 3 in Florida prevents children under 14-year-old from creating social media accounts, and require 14- and 15- year-olds to get parental consent before making an account. Governor Ron DeSantis signed in into law on March 25th.

Still other bills, like Oklahoma HB 3097, would force pornography companies to honor parents’ request to prevent certain phones, laptops and internet modems from accessing their obscene website.

Other bills, like House Bill 295 in Ohio, create ways for the state to prosecute pornography companies who fail to follow the age verification rules. HB 295 would allow Ohio’s Attorney General to charge companies who fail to check users’ age with a third-degree felony, in addition to civil penalties. The bill would make using a fake-ID to fool age verification tech a misdemeanor.

While not perfect, age verification laws greatly restrict the amount of porn young people can consume. After Louisiana became the first state to pass such legislation in 2022, traffic to Pornhub.com from that state dropped by 80%, one spokesperson told IFS.

Scroll below to see the status of age verification bills in different states. To find out more about age verification and parents’ rights legislation in your state, contact your local Focus on the Family-allied Family Policy Council.

States in blue have age verification laws. Graphic courtesy of Family Policy Alliance.

ALASKA
HB 254: passed the House on April 26; referred to Senate Judiciary Committee on May 6.

ALABAMA
HB 164 became law on April 24.

ARIZONA
HB 2586: vetoed by Governor on April 8.
SB 1125: held in House in February.

ARKANSAS
SB 66 became law on April 11, 2023.

CALIFORNIA
AB 3087: passed out of Senate judiciary committee on July 2.

DELAWARE
HB 265: passed the House and referred to Senate Executive Committee on June 18.

FLORIDA
HB 3 became law on March 25.

GEORGIA
SB 351 became law on April 23.

IDAHO
HB 498 became law on March 21.

ILLINOIS
HB 4247: re-referred to referred to House Rules Committee on April 5.
SB 2590: referred to Senate Assignments Committee on October 18, 2023.

INDIANA
SB 17 became law on March 13.

IOWA
HB 2546: placed on House Judiciary Committee Calendar on February 15.
SB 2227: heard in Senate Technology Subcommittee on February 12.
HB 2051: passed out of House Judiciary Subcommittee January 23.

KANSAS
SB 394 became law without the Governor’s signature on April 25.

KENTUCKY
HB 278 became law on April 5.

LOUISIANA
HB 142 became law on June 15, 2022.

MICHIGAN
HB 5009: referred to House Committee on Energy, Communications and Technology on September 14, 2023.

MISSISSIPPI
HB 1126 became law without the Governor’s signature on April 30.

MISSOURI
HB 1993: passed out of the House Rules Committee on April 4.

MONTANA
SB 544 became law on May 19, 2023

NEBRASKA
Online Age Verification Liability Act became law on April 16.

NEW JERSEY
AB 4146: referred to Science, Innovation and Technology Committee on April 4.

NORTH CAROLINA
HB 8 became law on September 29, 2023.

OHIO
SB 212: third hearing in Senate Financial Institutions and Technology Committee on June 11.
HB 295: fourth hearing in House Criminal Justice Committee on May 21.

OKLAHOMA
SB 1959 became law on April 26.

PENNSYLVANIA
HB 2143: Re-referred to House Judiciary Committee on April 9.

SOUTH CAROLINA
HB 3424 became law on May 29.

TENNESSEE
HB 1642/SB 1792 became law on June 3.

TEXAS
HB 1181 became law on June 12, 2023.

UTAH
SB 0287 became law on May 4, 2023.

VIRGINIA
SB 1515 became law on May 12, 2023.

WISCONSIN
AB 730 failed on April 15.