CONCORD — Gov. John Lynch today applauded the Senate’s unanimous vote in support of the Online Child Safety Act. The bill, which seeks to modernize state laws to better protect children from sexual predators who use the Internet, now goes to the House for consideration.

“The Internet provides tremendous opportunities for children, but it can also be a dangerous place,” Gov. Lynch said. “That legislation will help protect our children from the threats of the 21st century, and I want to thank the members of the Senate for their overwhelming support of our state’s continuing efforts to protect children from these dangerous criminals.”

The legislation, developed with a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers, the Attorney General and New Hampshire’s law enforcement community, modernizes the state’s laws to better protect children from sexual predators who use the Internet. The legislation builds on the Child Protection Act passed in 2006, which is one of the country’s toughest laws to protect children from sexual predators.

The bill strengthens the penalties in existing law for enticing a child over the Internet, and provides enhanced penalties for repeat offenders; it overhauls and expands existing child pornography laws to better reflect the victimization that occurs everyday when images of sexually abused children are created and distributed; and it closes a loophole so that sex offenders using web cams can be held accountable.

“Parents are the most important people in protecting children from online predators. But children can access the Internet almost anywhere – without parental supervision. With this bill, we are helping parents and taking another important step forward in making our state a safer place for all our children,” Gov. Lynch said.

Senate Bill 495 is sponsored by Sens. Joe Foster, Bob Letourneau and Betsi DeVries; Reps. David Welch and William Knowles.