Law / United States / 
South Dakota
HB 1053 (2025), age verification for websites containing material harmful to minors
S.D. Codified Laws ch. 22-24 (new sections enacted by 2025 S.D. Laws, HB 1053)
In force since .
An adult content age verification (AV) rule binding private bodies.
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Applies to a covered platform: a website whose regular course of trade or business is to create, host or make available material harmful to minors. Search engines, internet service providers and cloud providers are exempt.
- Implement reasonable age verification using a state issued driver license or non-driver ID, bank account information, an age restricted debit or credit card, or another reliable method.no control in the NIST Privacy Framework
- Prevent minors from accessing that material.no control in the NIST Privacy Framework
- Do not sell or retain identifying information collected in age verification; the law bars verifiers from doing either.NIST Privacy FrameworkCT.PO-P1NIST Privacy FrameworkCT.DM-P5
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
In the frameworks
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework, and in the NIST Privacy Framework, line by line beside each duty above. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
If you get it wrong
Private right of actionNo
Penalties
Class 1 misdemeanor for a first violation; Class 6 felony for a subsequent violation by the same platform; injunction and civil penalty of up to $5,000 per instance, recoverable only in an action by the attorney general after a 90 day notice and cure period.
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
South Dakota Attorney General; the act states it may not be construed as the basis for a new private right of action.
Settledness
The Supreme Court of the United States upheld Texas's age verification law for websites that publish material harmful to minors under intermediate scrutiny in Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton, No. 23-1122 (U.S. ); that decision construed the Texas statute, not South Dakota's.
- As of
- Open questions
- Does a website that hosts some material harmful to minors but whose business is otherwise unrelated fall within the definition of a 'covered platform', which turns on whether it is 'in the regular course of the website's trade or business' to host that material, and is there any share of such material below which the website is outside it?
- What counts as a 'separate instance' for the civil penalty of up to $5,000 under section 7 of HB 1053: each visitor admitted without verification, each access by a minor, or each day of non-compliance?
What it reaches
Age threshold
18
Covered services
Covered platforms: websites for which creating, hosting, or making available material harmful to minors is in the regular course of the website's trade or business.
Verification methods
Gov ID, Transactional data
What it makes you log
Log retention
The section sets no period and no exception for a retention window; it bars retaining the information at all.
- As of
- Basis
- Unspecified
- Prohibits retaining
- Any identifying information of an individual collected by the covered platform or a third party for the age verification, which neither may sell or retain
Logging duty
Sections 22-24-69 to 22-24-73 require a covered platform to implement reasonable age verification (22-24-69) and bar it and any third-party verifier from selling or retaining the identifying information collected for the check (22-24-70). They name no log, no record of the check, no retention period and no regulator access to a record. The Attorney General's notice and cure process (22-24-71) is a one-time sworn statement that measures were implemented, not a record the platform keeps. The sections name no territorial hook.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Requires a covered platform, defined as a website whose regular course of trade or business is to create, host, or make available material harmful to minors, to implement reasonable age verification (state issued driver license or non-driver ID, bank account information, an age restricted debit or credit card, or another reliable method) and to prevent minors from accessing that material. Verifiers may not sell or retain identifying information. Search engines, internet service providers, and cloud providers are exempt.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app publishes adult content.
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