Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight
A state Senate panel has declined to advance a bill that would have required mobile app stores operating in South Dakota to use age verification to restrict app downloads by minors.
House Bill 1275 passed the House of Representatives on a 50-17 vote last month but was defeated in the Senate State Affairs Committee, 5-4. Had it passed, mobile app stores would have been required to verify a person’s age, get parental approval for app downloads by minors, and to list age ratings for apps.
Sioux Falls Republican Sen. Sue Peterson is one of the bill’s sponsors.
“Kids cannot sign contracts,” Peterson said. “This is how we operate in the real world, and we should operate that way in the digital world as well.”
The bill’s supporters said digital stores are a gateway to the harmful content minors may find on apps. The stores typically already have the customer credit card information needed to verify that a person is 18 or older, the bill’s supporters argued, making them better positioned to regulate access than app developers.
Supporters included Family Voice Action, the South Dakota Attorney General’s office, Concerned Women for America, and the South Dakota Catholic Conference.
But, app stores already offer extensive parental control features, said Doug Abraham, a lobbyist for The App Association. He also said the bill makes app stores liable for the harm done by apps.
That argument resonated for Senate Majority Leader Jim Mehlhaff, R-Pierre.
“If an app developer or a website is producing things that are harmful to children, then they ought to be the ones verifying the age and making sure that it’s not being provided to children,” Mehlhaff said.
Mehlhaff was part of a 2024 Study Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Regulation of Internet Access by Minors. The group voted to draft legislation that would have required app stores to take “commercially reasonable and technically feasible steps” to determine or estimate a user’s age and to require those younger than 16 to get a parent’s permission before downloading apps to mobile devices. The group ultimately scrapped the proposal in favor of a bill requiring pornographic websites to verify users’ ages.
That bill was passed last year and signed into law by Gov. Larry Rhoden.