Senate approves bill to produce parental education video on sexting, funds RFA for campaign

Senate Bill 98, a measure to produce parental education about student use of technology and sexting, passed the Utah Senate on a 23–0 roll call with six senators absent.

Senator Wilson, the bill sponsor, moved an amendment (Amendment 2) on the floor that removed a specific time estimate for the proposed video (previously listed as approximately five to ten minutes) and replaced it with the term “brief,” following advice from the State Board of Education. The amendment was adopted on voice vote.

On the floor, Wilson cited data from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, saying “1 in 5 children fall victim to online sexual solicitation,” and described rising reports of sextortion and online exploitation. She said prosecution is increasingly difficult because many predators operate from outside the country. Wilson described a 2016 Utah case in which a family lost a son to sextortion as an example of the harm advocates seek to prevent through education.

Wilson said the bill requires the State Board of Education to produce a short video that local school boards could use at back-to-school events and that the state would run a request for applications (RFA) for $100,000 to support a public-awareness campaign. She said the bill’s working group included the Utah Office of the Attorney General, the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Utah courts, the State Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice, the Utah State Board of Education, the Utah Association of School Resource Officers, and the Sentencing Commission; Detective Chris Ruiz of the state school resource officer program participated in the working group and urged preemptive education.

Wilson also cited school-discipline and curriculum context: school health curriculum requires instruction on criminally prohibited behavior, including distribution of explicit images, but she said many parents may not understand what children encounter online. The sponsor cited a figure of 861 reported offenses of sharing explicit content since February 2019 on the floor record. A parent-survey figure was mentioned in the presentation but the transcript’s number was unclear; the floor record reported that 60% of responding parents said they did not know whether sexting is a problem.

After the roll call, the presiding officer announced SB 98 had received 23 yea votes, 0 nay votes and 6 absent, and the bill was ordered read a third time.

The floor record does not specify how the video will be distributed beyond local school boards’ use nor the RFA’s administrative lead; Wilson said the video would be available for back-to-school nights and local school boards.