Most bills went into effect last year on July 1 and Oct. 1 after being signed and approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Now, all bills — including the ones listed below — are officially in effect. Here are selected tech-related bills:
- Under HB 3, minors younger than 14 can no longer access or use social media accounts without parental consent. Social media platforms must delete any accounts suspected of belonging to minors under the set age limit. If an account user wishes to contest any account terminations, they have 90 days to do so under this new law. If a social media platform violates the law by not terminating a minor’s account, they would be required to pay up to $50,000 per violation, along with attorney fees and court costs.
- HB 135 codifies that a voter’s party affiliation cannot be changed without their written consent. The tech aspect of this bill comes into play after voters found their party affiliation switched to No Party Affiliation without their consent due to a glitch in Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles software that would occur when voters renewed their licenses. This glitch has since been fixed.
- HB 1491 provides “an exemption from public records requirements for information relating to investigations by the Department of Legal Affairs.” Under the law, information exempt from public records requirements includes personal identifying information, information related to investigations into certain social media violations, and specific age verification violations.
