The Louisiana House of Representatives approved House Bill 977 by a unanimous 94-0 vote this week, sending the measure to the Senate. Sponsored by Representative Gerald “Beau” Beaullieu IV (R-New Iberia), HB 977 would require application providers to verify the age of users at account creation and mandate that accounts created by minors be associated with a parent account.
The bill establishes four age classifications: child, younger teenager (ages 13-15), older teenager (ages 16-17), and adult (18 and older). It prohibits covered application providers from allowing minors to download applications, make in-app purchases, or create profiles without obtaining verifiable parental consent from an affiliated parent account. Age verification would be conducted using commercially available methods reasonably designed to ensure accuracy, which could include linkage to Louisiana’s Office of Motor Vehicles real-time age verification system. The bill also prohibits app providers from selling private identifying information obtained during the age verification process, and requires that personal age data be transmitted using industry-standard encryption and collected only to the extent necessary.
“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.”
HB 977 follows Louisiana’s earlier app age-verification bill from 2025, which cleared both chambers unanimously and helped establish the legislative framework the current bill is refining. The new measure is structured to target app stores rather than social media platforms directly, a design informed by the legal fate of its predecessor, which a federal judge permanently blocked in December 2025.
The constitutional risk is significant. HB 977 faces the same challenge as the Texas app store age-verification law blocked on First Amendment grounds in December 2025, with industry group NetChoice already signaling intent to challenge Louisiana’s version on identical grounds. The bill’s path also depends on the outcome of the Supreme Court challenge to state age verification laws, which accepted certiorari in January 2025 and could set national precedent before Louisiana’s measure takes effect. Louisiana’s unanimous vote comes amid diverging state approaches to the issue in 2026, with Kansas extending obligations to app stores while other states have retreated from similar legislation.
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By Ali Nassar-Smith
