SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — House Bill 1053, which would require age verification for porn sites passed the South Dakota Senate in a 34 to 0 vote. One Senator was excused.
HB1053 will now go to the desk of Governor Larry Rhoden.
The bill, brought by Republican Rep. Bethany Soye, will define a “covered platform” as a website which, in the regular course of its trade or business, creates, hosts or makes available material harmful to minors, as defined under South Dakota law.
It will also require that covered platforms institute “reasonable age verification” which includes the following options:
A state-issued driver license or non-driver identification card
The individual’s bank account information
A debit or credit card from the individual that requires the individual in ownership of the card to be at least eighteen years of age
Any other method or document that reliably and accurately indicates if a user of a covered platform is a minor and prevents a minor from accessing the content of a covered platform
A failure to implement this age verification would result in a class 1 misdemeanor. The bill also says that platforms cannot sell or retain any identifying information collected for age verification.
Enforcement of the law, under the bill, falls to the Attorney General.
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Prior to debate on the bill, the South Dakota ACLU provided this statement from advocacy manager Samantha Chapman.
“Laws that seek to impose age verification systems on sites with adult content might sound reasonable at first, but the devil is in the details,” said Chapman. “Under House Bill 1053, adults would be required to upload personal data, such as a photo ID, with companies that claim to verify their age. Efforts to childproof the internet like this not only hurt everyone’s ability to access information, but also pose numerous threats to our online privacy and safety. If this bill passes, every single website with any amount of “material harmful to minors” would require all users to upload their government-issued ID, bank account information, or credit card number to prove their age, and make otherwise suitable content completely off-limits for minors. This is akin to barring minors from an entire library because one shelf contains adult materials.”
Following passage of the bill, the ACLU sent out another statement, expressing their opposition to the bill and stating that age verification won’t save children from online harm, but will instead invade the privacy of all South Dakotans.
“Is there harmful content on the internet for young viewers? Undoubtedly. But not every societal ill requires a solution from the government. We can, and should, make the internet safer for minors. But we can do this without sacrificing our privacy and Constitutional rights,” wrote Chapman in the ACLU statement.
A similar bill to this was killed in the Senate last session, and Soye was also a co-sponsor on a Senate version of this bill, though the opted to draft her own in order to address some concerns with the Senate bill, which was the result of an interim study on the subject.
A Senate committee this week opted to move forward with Soye’s House bill rather than the Senate bill.
