Louisiana’s HB 977 is a legally flawed age verification mandate that would likely be invalidated in court, while infringing on free speech and undermining user privacy. The bill imposes vague, burdensome requirements that would not effectively protect minors and could expose sensitive personal data to security risks.
NetChoice Testimony in Opposition to Louisiana HB 977
April 6, 2026
Louisiana Legislature
House Commerce Committee
Dear Chair Deshotel, Vice-Chair Thomas and Members of the House Commerce Committee:
NetChoice respectfully asks that you oppose HB 977 which is nearly identical to Texas Senate Bill 2420—a law that was blocked by a federal court in December 2025 as unconstitutional, and is currently being challenged in Utah. Like those laws, HB 977 requires app stores to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent for minors’ downloads and purchases. If enacted, this bill would almost certainly violate Louisianans’ First Amendment rights, weaken their privacy and fail to keep kids safe.
NetChoice is a trade association of leading internet businesses that promotes the value, convenience and choice that internet business models provide to American consumers. Our mission is to make the internet safe for free enterprise and free expression.
We share the sponsor’s goal to better protect minors from harmful content online. NetChoice members have taken the issues of children’s and teen safety seriously and, in recent years, have rolled out new features, settings, parental tools and protections to better empower parents and help them monitor their children’s use of social media. We ask that you oppose age verification proposals and instead focus on proposals that more effectively protect young people online without violating the constitutional rights of every Louisianan of any age.
Age Verification–whether at the app store level, device or website-level raises constitutional issues—and is now being litigated in other states.
The Supreme Court and other federal courts have ruled that age verification mandates that block access to the exercise of First Amendment rights are unconstitutional. Age verification laws have recently failed to withstand legal scrutiny in California, Utah, Ohio, Arkansas and Mississippi (See NetChoice v. Reyes, D.Utah (2023), https://netchoice.org/netchoice-v-reyes/; NetChoice v. Yost, S.D.Ohio (2024), https://netchoice.org/netchoice-v-yost/). Implementing such a measure in Louisiana would likely meet the same fate and lead to costly legal challenges without providing any real benefits to the state’s residents. As Federal Judge Freeman noted earlier this month in granting a full injunction against California’s age restriction law, “The act applies to all online content likely to be accessed by consumers under the age of 18, and imposes significant burdens on the providers of that content” (NetChoice v. Bonta Case No. 22-cv-08861-BLF).
While states may (and should) protect minors from harm, they lack, as Justice Scalia memorably put it, “a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed” (Brown v. Ent. Merchants Ass’n, 564 U.S. 786, 794 (2011) (citations omitted)). Indeed, the First Amendment’s protections are broad, even for minors. For example, it protects the right to speak—and to access lawful information (Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 564 (1969)). Information needn’t be high-brow to receive constitutional protection; mere data generated by pharmacies is protected speech (“information”) whose commercial dissemination is also constitutionally protected, for example (Sorrel v. IMS Health Inc., 564 U.S. 552, 567 (2011)).
Because the First Amendment protects the right to disseminate (The Supreme Court reaffirmed that “creation and dissemination of information are speech within the meaning of the First Amendment” no matter the “speech” (here, data) or purpose (here, commercial). Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., 564 U.S. 552, 567 (2011) (“[T]he First Amendment does not prevent restrictions directed at commerce or conduct from imposing incidental burdens on speech.”)) and to access lawful information, no matter the lawful dissemination method or commercial nature, age-verification requirements are unconstitutional. Indeed, the First Amendment’s protections “do not go on leave when [new] media are involved” (Moody v. NetChoice, LLC, 144 S. Ct. 2383, 2394 (2024)). “Like protected books, plays, and movies,” any lawful medium used to create, access or “communicate ideas” are protected under the First Amendment, including the “devices and features distinctive to [their] medium” (Brown v. Ent. Merchants Ass’n, 564 U.S. 786, 790 (2011)).
Given that legal landscape, HB 977’s age-verification, parental-consent requirements and data-related requirements cannot survive judicial review. Unlike regulating access to physical products, no one has a constitutionally enumerated right to buy (cigarettes, alcohol), requiring ID (or similar “identity-based” burdens) for accessing lawful speech violates the First Amendment rights of adults, minors and businesses alike. “Age-verification schemes,” a federal district court recently held in enjoining Arkansas’s similar age-verification requirements, “are not only an additional hassle, but they also require that website visitors forgo the anonymity otherwise available on the internet.”
Finally, HB 977 would likely be ruled unconstitutional under the Dormant Commerce Clause because it regulates behavior and activities that take place outside of Louisiana. The law also imposes requirements on app stores about users who are under the age of 18. These requirements conflict with COPPA, a federal law that governs how websites handle minors’ data. Therefore, HB 977 also violates the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.
Age Verification proposals undermine parental authority.
Poorly-designed age verification laws not only face legal challenges, but also encroach upon parents’ long-established prerogatives in guiding their children’s upbringing and online activities. Many online platforms have already implemented robust parental control features. For example, some online platforms have led the way with suites of tools for parents and teens to better protect themselves. Additional parental controls are available at the device level. For example, iPhones and iPads already empower parents to limit the time their children can spend on the device, choose which applications (e.g., YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat or Instagram) their children can use, set age-related content restrictions for those applications, filter online content and control privacy settings. Market-driven innovation allows for diverse solutions that address different needs and preferences.
Moreover, if onerous requirements are forced onto app stores or devices, minors will quickly shift their access to use browsers instead of specialized apps, circumventing the protections the law aims to establish. This highlights the ineffectiveness of device-level or app store-level verification as a comprehensive solution.
Simply put, a one-size-fits-all government mandate will give users a false sense of security and will flatten the offerings for youth safety that are currently provided by the private sector. It would stifle innovation in this space and potentially reduce protections for Louisiana youth, as companies focus on compliance rather than developing more effective, tailored solutions.
Age Verification proposals would put Louisianans’ private data at risk, leaving them vulnerable to breaches and crime.
HB 977 mandates age verification using “Commercially available methods that are reasonably designed to ensure accuracy” without specifying what methods satisfy this requirement. The bill defines developers as entities that create applications “likely to be accessed by children” but provides no objective criteria for making this determination. This vagueness creates an impossible compliance standard, as virtually any application could potentially be “likely” accessed by children. This ambiguity would effectively force all developers to implement age verification to avoid potential liability, creating an unconstitutionally broad restriction on speech.
Louisianans, like all Americans, value their privacy and the ability to use online services without unnecessary intrusion. Age verification systems would require collecting and storing sensitive personal data, potentially including government-issued IDs or biometric information. This not only contradicts the bipartisan aim of improving data security but also creates a new target for cybercriminals, potentially putting Louisianans at risk of identity theft or other forms of fraud. As we know from recent experience, any time there is a store of sensitive information it becomes a prime target for identity thieves and other nefarious individuals. Even government agencies have fallen victim to these attacks.
A quarter of minors become a victim of identity fraud or theft before their 18th birthday (25 percent of kids will face identity theft before turning 18. Age-verification laws will make this worse. – R Street Institute (2024)). The problem is even worse for minors in foster care and child welfare systems. Identity fraud incidents can affect a young person’s credit reports, holding them back on the path to financial stability. Age verification mandates stand to make this problem a catastrophe.
Conclusion
While age-verification proposals are well-intended, NetChoice strongly believes that the drawbacks outweigh potential benefits. We respectfully urge the committee to reject this unconstitutional and ineffective approach. Instead, we encourage fostering private sector innovation in parental controls and youth safety tools. NetChoice members remain committed to protecting minors online through empowering parents, educating users and working with policymakers to develop more effective and constitutional solutions to address concerns about underage access to sensitive content or services.
We want to be a resource to discuss these issues in further detail, and we appreciate the opportunity to provide the committee with our thoughts on this important matter.
Sincerely,
Amy Bos, Vice President of Government Affairs, NetChoice (The views of NetChoice expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of all NetChoice members.)
NetChoice is a trade association that works to protect free expression and promote free enterprise online.