25.0746.02000
Sixty-ninth
Legislative Assembly
of North Dakota
Introduced by
Representatives Hendrix, Bolinske, VanWinkle, K. Anderson, M. Ruby, McLeod, Frelich,
Steiner
Senators Boehm, Paulson, Castaneda, Clemens
A BILL for an Act to create and enact a new section to chapter 51-07 of the North Dakota
Century Code, relating to a covered platform's liability for publishing or distributing sexual
material harmful to a minor; and to provide a penalty.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF NORTH DAKOTA:
SECTION 1. A new section to chapter 51-07 of the North Dakota Century Code is created
and enacted as follows:
Liability for publishing or distributing sexual material harmful to minors - Age
verification requirements - Damages.
1.As used in this section:
a."Covered platform" means an entity that is a website that in the regular course of
business creates, hosts, or makes available content that meets the definition of
material harmful to a minor.
b."Distribute" means to issue, sell, give, provide, deliver, transfer, transmute,
circulate, or disseminate by any means.
c."Minor" means an individual under eighteen years of age.
d."Publish" means to communicate or make information available to another
person on a publicly available internet website.
e."Reasonable age verification methods" includes verifying the individual seeking to
access the material is eighteen years of age or older by using:
(1)A state-issued operator's license;
(2)A state-issued identification;
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(3)A government-issued identification;
(4)A digital identification;
(5)A credit card or debit card;
(6)Bank account information; or
(7)Any commercially reasonable method that reliably and accurately can verify
a user attempting to access a covered platform is a minor and prevent
access by minors to the context on a covered platform.
f."Sexual material harmful to a minor" includes material that:
(1)The average individual applying contemporary community standards would
find, taking the material as a whole and with respect to a minor, is designed
to appeal to or pander to the prurient interest;
(2)In a manner patently offensive with respect to a minor, exploits, is devoted
to, or principally consists of descriptions of actual, simulated, or animated
displays or depictions of:
(a)An individual's pubic hair, anus, genitals, or the nipple of the female
breast;
(b)Touching, caressing, or fondling of nipples, breasts, buttocks, anuses,
or genitals; or
(c)Sexual intercourse, masturbation, sodomy, bestiality, oral copulation,
flagellation, excretory functions, exhibitions, or any other sexual act;
(3)Taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value
for a minor; and
(4)Is obscene, indecent, or child pornography.
2.A covered platform that knowingly publishes or distributes sexual material harmful to a
minor on the internet from a website must be held liable if the entity fails to perform
reasonable age verification methods to verify the age of an individual attempting to
access the material and fails to prevent access to the material by a minor.
3.A covered platform shall apply due diligence based on available technology and may
not rely solely on the internet protocol address to confirm the location of an individual
seeking to access the material.
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4.This section only applies to a minor who is a permanent resident in this state and has
been present in the state for at least thirty - one consecutive days.
5.A covered platform or third party must ensure that a reasonable age verification
method is designed to anonymize an individual's identity, may not retain any
identifying information of the individual after access has been granted to the material,
and be incapable of being used to create a record of the individual's online activity.
6.A covered platform found to have violated subsection 2 or 3 is liable for damages and
subject to a fine of ten thousand dollars for each day the violation occurs.
7.The attorney general shall enforce this section.
8.A civil action may be brought against any covered platform, or third party that performs
the required age verification on behalf of the covered platform, by:
a.A parent or guardian whose minor child was allowed access to the material in
violation of subsection 2; or
b.An individual whose identifying information is retained in violation of subsection 5.
9.An individual authorized to bring a civil action under subsection 8 may seek and the
court may award:
a.An injunction to enjoin continued violation of this section;
b.Compensatory and exemplary damages; and
c.Costs and fees, including reasonable attorney fees.
10.This section does not apply to any bona fide news or public interest broadcast,
website video, report, or event, and may not be construed to affect the rights of any
news-gathering organization.
11.An internet service provider or its affiliates or subsidiaries, a search engine, a cloud
service provider, or an application store may not be held to have violated this section
solely for providing access or connection to or from a website or other information or
content on the internet or a facility, system, or network not under the provider's control,
including transmission, downloading, intermediate storage, access software, or other
forms of access or storage to the extent the provider is not responsible for the creation
of the content of the communication that constitutes sexual material harmful to a
minor.
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