Arkansas AV Mandate Starts Monday
On Monday July 31, Arkansas’ law requiring age verification for sites hosting adult content will take effect. Sites that do not age-verify users as prescribed by the law will be liable for civil suits should a minor access — and be harmed by — content on the site.
What’s covered
Arkansas defines content “harmful to minors” similarly to other states (see below).
What’s required
The law requires sites to use one or more of the following age verification methods:
A digitized identification card, including a digital copy of a driver’s license
Government-issued identification
Any commercially reasonable age verification method that holds an Identity Assurance Level 2 (IAL2)
Despite passing a law authorizing them in 2017, Arkansas does not yet have a digital identification card.
If you are using an age verification software provider, be sure to ask them whether their product is IAL2 certified.
What FSC is doing
FSC is exploring a legal challenge to the Arkansas law. In the meantime, we will continue to keep you informed.
Check out our Age Verification Resources for more tools and information.
Definition of Content Harmful to Minors
(A) Any material that the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find, taking the material as a whole and with respect to minors, is designed to appeal to, or is designed to pander to, prurient interest;
(B) Any of the following material that exploits, is devoted to, or principally consists of descriptions of actual, simulated, or animated displays or depictions of any of the following, in a manner patently offensive with respect to minors:
(i) Nipple of the female breast, pubic hair, anus, vulva, or genitals;
(ii) Touching, caressing, or fondling of nipples, breasts, buttocks, the anus, or genitals; or
(iii) Sexual intercourse, masturbation, sodomy bestiality, oral copulation, flagellation, excretory functions, exhibitions of a sexual act and any other sexual act; and
(C) The material taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value for minors