Amends TCA Title 37; Title 47, Chapter 18 and Title 68.

This bill provides the following: (1) A commercial entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes or distributes material on an internet website, including a social media platform, more than one-third of which is sexual material harmful to minors, must use reasonable age verification methods to verify that an individual attempting to access the material is 18 or older; (2) A commercial entity or a third party that performs the age verification required by (1) above, must not retain any identifying information of the individual; and (3) To reasonably verify age, a commercial entity must require an individual to provide digital identification, comply with an age verification system that verifies age using a government issued identification, a reasonable method that relies on public, or private transactional data. As used in this bill, material is "harmful to minors" if the average person taking the material as a whole determines it is designed to appeal to the prurient interest through principally consisting of sexual content that is offensive to minors and lacks significant literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. EXEMPTIONS This bill does not apply to a bona fide news or public interest broadcast, website video, report, or event and must not affect the rights of a news-gathering organization. Further, an internet service provider, or its affiliates or subsidiaries, a search engine, or a cloud service provider must not be found to have violated this bill solely for providing access or connection to or from a website or other information or content on the internet or on a facility, system, or network not under that provider's control, including transmission, downloading, intermediate storage, access software, or other services to the extent the provider or search engine is not responsible for the creation of the content that constitutes sexual material harmful to minors. PENALTIES The bill provides that if the attorney general believes this bill has been violated and the action is in public interest, then the attorney general may bring an action in Davidson County or in the county where the principal place of business of the entity is located in this state to enjoin the violation, obtain civil relief the court considers appropriate, or recover a civil penalty in an amount not more than: (1) $10,000 per day that the entity operates an internet website in violation of the age verification requirements of this bill; (2) $10,000 per instance when the entity retains identifying information in violation of this bill; and (3) If, because of the entity's violation of the age verification requirements of this bill or more minors access sexual material harmful to minors, $250,000 as an additional amount. This bill requires the civil penalty amount to be based on the seriousness of the violation, the history of previous violations, the amount necessary to deter future violation, the economic effect of a penalty on the entity, the entity's knowledge that the act constituted a violation of this bill, and any other matter that justice may require.