Law / United States / 
South Carolina
Age-Appropriate Design Code, enforcement
S.C. Code Ann. sec. 39-80-80 (Act No. 96 of 2026, H. 3431)
In force since , under challenge in court.
An enforcement supervision rule binding private bodies.
- Audit expectation
- none
- Court action
A suit challenging this law is pending. No court has blocked it. Premium data
What it requires
- Expect the South Carolina Attorney General to enforce this chapter, with treble damages available for a violation and personal liability for officers and employees on a willful or wanton violation.
- Do not assume this chapter is silent on private enforcement or that it is settled either way. Whether a private plaintiff may invoke the treble-damages remedy is unresolved in the statutory text.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
Who enforces it
Settledness
NetChoice, LLC v. Wilson, No. 3:26-cv-00543 (D.S.C.), challenges the Act, and NetChoice moved for a preliminary injunction on .
- As of
- Under challenge
- Yes
- Open questions
- Whose "financial damages" does Section 39-80-80(B) treble when subsection (A) gives enforcement to the Attorney General?
- Who may enforce the personal liability of officers and employees for "wilful and wanton violations" under Section 39-80-80(C), when subsection (A) names only the Attorney General as enforcer?
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Section 39-80-80 has the Attorney General enforce Chapter 80, makes a covered online service liable for treble the financial damages caused by a violation, and allows personal liability of officers and employees for wilful and wanton violations. It requires no log or record, names no audit, and gives no party a right to a record. The section states no territorial clause; the chapter's reach clause is in 39-80-10(4)(a), which this row does not cite.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
The Attorney General enforces Chapter 80. A covered online service is liable for treble the financial damages incurred as a result of a violation, and officers and employees of a covered online service may be held personally liable for willful and wanton violations.
The 30,353-character enacted text does not resolve whether the treble-damages remedy is available to a private plaintiff or is confined to a suit the Attorney General brings: no clause reads that an injured person may bring a civil action, the phrasing South Carolina's breach statute uses to grant one, and no clause reads that the chapter creates no private right of action, the phrasing Pennsylvania's and West Virginia's comparable proposed and dead bills use to foreclose one.
Whether a private right of action exists is therefore not established for this instrument; the treble-damages and personal-liability clauses read most naturally as remedies within the Attorney General's own suit given the enforcement section's framing naming only the Attorney General, and no construing case settles it.
When LexLint raises it
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