BATON ROUGE – The House unanimously approved a bill Wednesday that would require app providers to verify the age of anyone in Louisiana who creates a digital account and require minors to associate their accounts with those of their parents.

House Bill 977, authored by Rep. Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, was approved 94-0 and sent to the Senate. Beaullieu called the bill a vital step in the right direction to protect children online.

“This is a parental consent bill when it comes to minors in the use of applications,” Beaullieu said.

“The pillar of this bill is the mandate that covered application providers provide verifiable consent before allowing the minor to download the application and make in-app purchases and create a profile,” he said. “The law requires providers to verify the age of users. If a user is determined to be a minor, they must be affiliated with a parent account to ensure adult supervision.”

The House Commerce Committee had unanimously approved the bill on April 7 despite warnings that the measure could compromise data privacy.

House Bill 977 would set up age classifications such as child, younger teenager, older teenager or adult, with accounts belonging to minors needing to be associated with parental accounts.

Several concerns were raised in committee by Julie Barrett, founder of Conservative Ladies of America, regarding what documents would be required to verify the age of minors.

"Will it be birth certificates, passports, Social Security numbers or custody documents?" she asked.

Barrett also raised questions about the ambiguity of the data-collection process, noting the bill mentions "commercially available methods" without specifics.

While the original language of the bill would not allow companies to “share” private identifying information, the language was later changed to prohibit companies from selling individuals’ private identifying information.

Barrett said the bill does not give parents a clear path to address their concerns if an app developer does not comply with the age restrictions, allowing only the state attorney general to act against companies.

Rep. Edmond Jordan, D-Baton Rouge, said app providers currently have 45 days to respond to complaints that they have not enforced age limits. He said that response time was too long based on the potential harm it could do to a child.