On July 23, 2024, the Florida Department of State published a notice of proposed rule No. 2-43.001 to implement Section 501.1736(9) of the Florida Statutes, on social media use for minors.

What are the changes introduced by the proposed rule?

The proposed rule adds definitions for 'algorithm,' 'consistent pattern,' 'guardian,' and 'parent.' The proposed rule also defines a 'commercially reasonable method of age verification' as a method of verifying age that is regularly used by the government or businesses for the purpose of age and identity verification.

Furthermore, the proposed rule defines 'permanently delete all personal information' as destroying from all repositories all content the social media platform holds or that is held on behalf of the social media platform about a person. Such content includes but is not limited to information about a person's name, identifying characteristics about a person, the person's location, or the person's electronic material that could be used to identify the person. Destruction from all repositories means permanent removal of data or information the platform created, received, processed, archived, maintained, or transmitted about a person.

The proposed rule also establishes that 'reasonable parental verification' means any method that is reasonably calculated at determining that a person is a parent of a child that also verifies the age and identity of that parent by commercially reasonable means, which may include a social media platform:

• requesting from a child the child's parent's name, address, phone number, and email address;
• contacting the name provided by the child and confirming that the individual is the child's parent by obtaining documents or information sufficient to evidence the relationship; and
• utilizing any commercially reasonable method regularly used by the government or business to verify the parent's identity and age.

You can read the proposed rule here and track its progress here.