Utah Code 78B-3-1002. Liability for publishers and distributors — Age verification — Retention of data — Exceptions
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(1) A commercial entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes or distributes material harmful to minors on the Internet from a website that contains a substantial portion of such material shall 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.
Terms Used In Utah Code 78B-3-1002
- Commercial entity: includes corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships, limited partnerships, sole proprietorships, or other legally recognized entities. See Utah Code 78B-3-1001
- Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
- Internet: means the international computer network of both federal and non-federal interoperable packet switched data networks. See Utah Code 78B-3-1001
- Minor: means any person under 18 years old. See Utah Code 78B-3-1001
- News-gathering organization: means any of the following:(7)(a) an employee of a newspaper, news publication, or news source, printed or on an online or mobile platform, of current news and public interest, while operating as an employee as provided in this subsection, who can provide documentation of such employment with the newspaper, news publication, or news source; or(7)(b) an employee of a radio broadcast station, television broadcast station, cable television operator, or wire service while operating as an employee as provided in this subsection, who can provide documentation of such employment. See Utah Code 78B-3-1001
- Reasonable age verification methods: means verifying that the person seeking to access the material is 18 years old or older by using any of the following methods:
(9)(a) use of a digitized information card as defined in this section;(9)(b) verification through an independent, third-party age verification service that compares the personal information entered by the individual who is seeking access to the material that is available from a commercially available database, or aggregate of databases, that is regularly used by government agencies and businesses for the purpose of age and identity verification; or(9)(c) any commercially reasonable method that relies on public or private transactional data to verify the age of the person attempting to access the material. See Utah Code 78B-3-1001- Substantial portion: means more than 33-1/3% of total material on a website, which meets the definition of "material harmful to minors" as defined in this section. See Utah Code 78B-3-1001
(2) A commercial entity or third party that performs the required age verification shall not retain any identifying information of the individual after access has been granted to the material.(3) A commercial entity that is found to have violated this section shall be liable to an individual for damages resulting from a minor‘s accessing the material, including court costs and reasonable attorney fees as ordered by the court.(4) A commercial entity that is found to have knowingly retained identifying information of the individual after access has been granted to the individual shall be liable to the individual for damages resulting from retaining the identifying information, including court costs and reasonable attorney fees as ordered by the court.(5) This section shall not apply to any bona fide news or public interest broadcast, website video, report, or event and shall not be construed to affect the rights of a news-gathering organization.(6) No Internet service provider, affiliate or subsidiary of an Internet service provider, search engine, or cloud service provider shall be held to have violated the provisions of 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 that provider’s control, including transmission, downloading, storing, or providing access, to the extent that such provider is not responsible for the creation of the content of the communication that constitutes material harmful to minors. - Reasonable age verification methods: means verifying that the person seeking to access the material is 18 years old or older by using any of the following methods: