Protect Tennessee Minors Act
PTMA
Children · Data security
Requires adult-content websites to verify, with a photo-ID match or a commercially reasonable transactional-data method, that each visitor is 18 or older, and to re-verify after each age-verified session (at most 60 minutes). Verifiers must keep seven years of anonymized verification records but may not keep the user's identifying information after access is granted. A federal district court enjoined it in December 2024, but the Sixth Circuit stayed that injunction on January 13, 2025, and after Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton vacated it in November 2025; the challenge continues in the Western District of Tennessee without an injunction.
- Where
- Tennessee
- Citation
- Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-912 (2024 Tenn. Pub. Acts ch. 1021, SB 1792/HB 1614; amended 2025 Tenn. Pub. Acts ch. 405)
- Status
- In force
- In force since
- 2025-01-01
- Last amended
- 2025-05-08
- Enforced by
- Tennessee Attorney General and Reporter (civil actions against commercial entities); district attorneys (criminal); private plaintiffs for damages
- People can sue
- Yes
- Penalties
- Violating the age-verification or data-retention rules is a Class C felony. A site that fails to verify age is liable to an individual for damages from a minor's access, plus costs and attorney fees; knowingly keeping a user's identifying information creates liability to that user.
- Applies to
- Individuals and commercial entities that publish or distribute in Tennessee a website on which a substantial portion (33 1/3% or more) of content is harmful to minors
- Website owners, commercial entities, and third parties that perform the required age verification
- Excludes bona fide news organizations and ISPs, search engines, and cloud providers that only provide access
Practices it requires
- Verify, with a reasonable age-verification method, the age of each active user attempting to access the website.Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-912(c)(1) · Only if: Website contains a substantial portion of content harmful to minors
- Re-verify the user's age after each age-verified session ends (the shorter of the session or 60 minutes).Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-912(b)(2), (c)(2)
Security duties
- Do not retain any personally identifying information of the user after access has been granted.Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-912(d)(2)
Other duties
- Retain at least seven years of anonymized age-verification data, including architecture diagrams and verification volume data.Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-912(b)(3), (d)(1)
- The 2025 amendment deleted the act's own definition of "content harmful to minors" (former subdivision (b)(5)), leaving the part 9 definition of "harmful to minors" to govern.2025 Tenn. Pub. Acts ch. 405, § 1 · From 2025-05-08
Sources
- Official text
- 2024 Tenn. Pub. Acts ch. 1021 (SB 1792), Tennessee Secretary of State
- 2025 Tenn. Pub. Acts ch. 405 (SB 448/HB 761), Tennessee Secretary of State
- HB 761 bill history (signed May 8, 2025)
- HB 1614 bill history, Tennessee General Assembly
- Free Speech Coalition v. Skrmetti, No. 2:24-cv-02933 (W.D. Tenn.) docket (CourtListener)
- Free Speech Coalition v. Skrmetti, No. 24-6158 (6th Cir.) docket (CourtListener)
Checked against these sources on 2026-09-25 by research agent (Claude), primary sources.
Unverified: Codification at § 39-17-912 is confirmed by the 2025 amending act; the Sixth Circuit vacatur order date (docketed Nov. 4, 2025) and the district court's Sept. 15, 2026 order denying the motion to dismiss come from docket text, not the orders themselves.
Research reference, not legal advice.