Law / United States / 
Tennessee
Protect Tennessee Minors Act (SB 1792/HB 1614, 2024 Tenn. Pub. Acts ch. 1021)
Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-17-912
A citation is an address, not a summary. The first part names the law; what follows narrows it to the exact section, article or paragraph.
What follows is LexLint's own research summary of this law, not legal advice.
In force since 1 January 2025.
An adult content age verification (AV) rule binding private bodies.
As of 2 September 2026.
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
Requires an individual or commercial entity that publishes or distributes a website on which one third or more of total content is content harmful to minors to perform reasonable age verification before granting access, and to re-verify after each age-verified session of at most 60 minutes. Verifiers must retain seven years of anonymized age verification data and may not retain personally identifying information. A violation is a Class C felony.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Private right of actionYes
Criminal exposure note
A violation of the age-verification duty (failing to verify, or re-verify after a 60-minute age-verified session, an active user's age) or the retention duty (failing to retain seven years of anonymized age-verification data, or retaining personally identifying information after access has been granted) is a Class C felony, Tennessee's general felony classification carrying three to fifteen years imprisonment and a fine of up to $10,000 under Tenn. Code Ann. sec. 40-35-111.
Penalties
Class C felony for a violation of the age verification or data retention requirements; civil damages liability to individuals harmed.
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Tennessee Attorney General and Reporter, who may bring any appropriate action or proceeding against a noncompliant commercial entity; the age-verification duty and the data-retention duty are each also a Class C felony, and an individual may separately sue for damages caused by a minor's access to the material or by unlawful retention of identifying information.
Litigation
- Court
- U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, formerly on appeal to the Sixth Circuit
- Docket
- Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Skrmetti, No. 2:24-cv-02933 (W.D. Tenn.); appeal No. 24-6158 (6th Cir.)
- Posture
- Preliminarily enjoined on December 30, 2024, before the law took effect. The Sixth Circuit stayed that injunction on January 13, 2025, allowing enforcement to proceed, and on November 4, 2025 vacated the injunction and remanded for proceedings consistent with the Supreme Court's June 2025 decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton. The law is enforceable as of this date.
What it reaches
Age threshold
18
Covered services
Websites where thirty-three and one-third percent or more of the total data is content harmful to minors.
Obligation class
Age verification, Retention
Verification methods
Gov ID, Transactional data
When LexLint raises it
publishes_adult_content
Read the law
official public chapter (session law) text, Tennessee Secretary of State
the codified Tennessee Code Annotated is licensed to a single commercial publisher and has no free official url
Every line above is drawn from the primary source linked here, read on the date shown. This is a research summary, not legal advice.