State Sen. Erica Harriss (R-Glen Carbon) filed legislation to protect minors from exposure to pornographic content online by implementing age verification requirements in Illinois.
The Adult Content Age Verification Act, or Senate Bill 2590, would require businesses to establish “reasonable age verification methods” to ensure that anyone entering pornographic websites is of legal age.
“Our youth are incredibly vulnerable on the internet, and they have access to a wide variety of adult content, some of which can be harmful, hurtful, and inappropriate,” she stated. “I filed this legislation to help protect children from accessing explicit material intended for adult viewership by requiring more accountability from pornographic websites.”
The bill is co-sponsored by State Sen. Jason Plummer (R-Edwardsville).
“We owe it to the kids and their parents to do what we can to create safeguards to protect them from the growing amount of inappropriate and sometimes horrific content that is currently easily available online to anyone of any age,” Plummer stated. “This initiative goes hand-in-hand with our continued efforts to protect children from being exploited, including further work to crack down on human trafficking.”
A 2022 report by Common Sense Media researched teens and pornography and found that most teens had consumed porn online. The average age that children were first exposed to pornography was 12 years old, and more than half were exposed accidentally from friends, classmates, search engine results, social media or by clicking links.
“Leading health organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, warn that consuming pornography as a minor can be associated with a variety of negative emotional, psychological, behavioral and physical health outcomes,” Harriss stated. “My legislation puts the health of our children first, by implementing reasonable verification requirements that should be expected of businesses profiting off non-verified underaged viewers.”
The Adult Content Age Verification Act identifies the “reasonable age verification methods” businesses must follow, including requiring a government-issued ID or commercial methods that rely on specific transactional data to verify the individual is 18 years or older.
If signed into law, the Act would give businesses 30 days to comply with the age verification methods or they will be subject to civil penalties assessed by the court.
All funds resulting from civil penalties would be disbursed into the Cyber Exploitation of Children Fund, which helps state local law enforcement agencies develop an effective response to technology facilitated child sexual exploitation and internet crimes against children.
The bill would also allow the Illinois Attorney General to investigate an alleged violation against a business who publishes or distributes pornographic material to minors who have not submitted reasonable age verification.