SB 498 West Virginia Senate · 2026 Regular Session

Relating to pornography access for minors

West Virginia's SB 498, titled the "Protecting Kids from Porn" Act, requires websites providing adult content (where over 25% of material is explicit) to implement strict age verification before allowing access. It mandates a four-step process: facial recognition, government ID verification, credit card authentication for adults, and third-party checks, with re-verification every 24 hours. The law prohibits bypassing these measures via VPNs or proxies and imposes significant penalties, including $1 million per violation, permanent blocking of non-compliant sites, and civil liability up to $10,000 per minor exposed. It directly affects commercial adult websites operating in West Virginia and aims to prevent minors from accessing pornographic material online.
Bill status in committee 1 of 4 stages cleared
Introduction
Jan 2026
Committee Review
Floor Vote
Governor
Introduced Jan 19, 2026 Last action Jan 19, 2026
Floor votes

How they voted

No floor votes recorded yet.
Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions
3
Key actions
0
Committee
1
Jan 19, 2026
Introduced
Introduced in Senate
upper
Jan 19, 2026
Committee
To Judiciary
upper
1 primary · 7 co-sponsors

Sponsors