Privacy Law Library

Age verification for adult websites; consent to publish private images (Act 2024-97)

AL Adult Website Age Verification

Children · Other

Requires adult websites to use a reasonable age-verification method so that minors cannot access sexual material harmful to minors, and bars the site or its verification vendor from keeping users' identifying information after access is granted. It also requires notarized written consent from every person depicted before an adult website publishes a private image, mandated health warnings, and (from September 1, 2025) a 10% gross receipts tax on adult websites.

Where
Alabama
Citation
Ala. Code §§ 8-19G-1 to 8-19G-10 (Act 2024-97, HB164)
Status
In force
In force since
2024-10-01
Enforced by
Alabama Attorney General (Consumer Interest Division); private plaintiffs
People can sue
Yes
Penalties
Injured individuals (or parents of an injured minor) may sue for actual and punitive damages, costs, and attorney fees; after a violation is found, the AG may petition for civil penalties up to $10,000 per violation. Violations are also Deceptive Trade Practices Act violations. Knowing retention of identifying information after verification creates liability for resulting damages.
Applies to
  • Commercial entities that knowingly and intentionally publish or distribute sexual material harmful to minors through an adult website (more than one-third of content is such material)
  • Third parties performing age verification for those entities
  • Excludes bona fide news-gathering organizations; ISPs, search engines, and cloud providers are not liable solely for providing access

What a privacy notice must say

  • Display specified state health warnings on the home page and advertisements and a federal helpline notice on every page, in at least 14-point font.Ala. Code § 8-19G-9

Practices it requires

  • Use a reasonable, commercially available age-verification method giving reasonable assurance that users are 18 or older before providing access to sexual material harmful to minors.Ala. Code § 8-19G-3
  • Obtain notarized written consent from every individual depicted before publishing or distributing a private image on an adult website, and keep consent records for at least five years.Ala. Code § 8-19G-8

Security duties

  • The site or any third party performing verification may not retain any personally identifying information of the individual after access is granted.Ala. Code § 8-19G-4

Other duties

  • Pay a 10% tax on gross receipts from harmful-to-minors content and file reports with the Department of Revenue.Ala. Code § 8-19G-10 · From 2025-09-01

Sources

Checked against these sources on 2026-09-25 by research agent (Claude), primary sources.

Unverified: Effective dates (October 1, 2024; Section 10 tax September 1, 2025) come from the ALISON bill record's effective-date field, not the enrolled text. | No court challenge to the Alabama law was found in a web search. A docket search was not done. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas's similar law in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (2025).

Research reference, not legal advice.