WHB/8/6
Sponsored by Bennett White of West High School
This legislation was filed in the Safety and Homeland Security category
Presented as part of the YIG Volunteer 2024 conference
| 1 | BE IT ENACTED BY THE TENNESSEE YMCA YOUTH IN GOVERNMENT |
| 2 | Section 1: Terms in this act shall be defined as follows: |
| 3 | a) Minors- any individual under the age of 18 |
| 4 | b) Pornographic Media- material that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual |
| 5 | excitement while having no education value |
| 6 | c) Commercial Entity- any entity that furnishes goods or services to the general public for profit |
| 7 | d) Government Identification- a document made or issued by or under the authority of the United |
| 8 | States government, state, or political subdivision of a state, with the commonly accepted purpose |
| 9 | of the identification of individuals |
| 10 | e) Federated Identification- a method of linking a users identity across separate identification |
| 11 | systems |
| 12 | f) Tennessee Information Protection Act- a state-wide ordinance regarding online privacy. |
| 13 | Legislation within this act includes but is not limited to opt-in consent when gathering sensitive |
| 14 | information and a mandatory right to cure. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | Section 2: Any commercial entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes or distributes material |
| 17 | that is harmful to minors to the internet containing pornographic material shall be held liable |
| 18 | unless that entity has performed a reasonable age verification; |
| 19 | a) A reasonable age verification includes but is not limited to: |
| 20 | I) Submission of Government Identification, |
| 21 | II) Federated Identification, |
| 22 | b) All identifying information shall be protected from unauthorized sale and shall be deleted on |
| 23 | request via the Tennessee Information Protection Act, |
| 24 | c) No third party company shall retain the information unless specifically authorized by the |
| 25 | individual submitting age verification information. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | Section 3: A commercial entity that has been found to violate the previous section of this act shall |
| 28 | be subject to both criminal and civil liability; |
| 29 | a) A commercial entity shall, at the Attorney General’s discretion, be charged with an appropriate |
| 30 | criminal offense if they are in violation of section 2, |
| 31 | b) A commercial entity shall be liable for damages resulting from a minor’s accessing of |
| 32 | pornographic material, including court costs and attorney fees as determined by the court, |
| 33 | c) A commercial entity shall be liable for damages resulting from retaining the information |
| 34 | disclosed by an individual for verification or violation of the Tennessee Information Protection Act, |
| 35 | including court costs and attorney fees as determined by the court. |
| 36 | |
| 37 | Section 4: This legislation shall incur no monetary expense. |
| 38 | Section 5: All laws or parts of laws in conflict with this are hereby repealed. |
| 39 | Section 6: This act shall take effect June 1st, 2024, the public welfare requiring it. |
| 40 |