Senate to Consider Five Bills on Online Privacy, Child Safety and AI
Summary
The Senate Commerce Committee is set to mark up five bills on children’s online safety, privacy and AI. They address platform duties, age verification, chatbot safeguards and AI toys; experts warn identity checks could increase data exposure and breach risks.
Key points
- The Senate Commerce Committee is scheduled to mark up five bills covering online privacy, child safety and AI.
- The Kids Online Safety Act would require platforms to use reasonable care around features that could harm minors, provide parental controls, restrict research on children under 13 and empower FTC enforcement.
- The SCREEN Act would require age verification; the EFF argues its scope could include services hosting even a single piece of sexually explicit content.
- The Youth AI Privacy Act would require chatbot disclosures and limits on push alerts and data retention, and bar using minors’ data for AI training or purposes beyond answering them.
- The Chatbot Act would require family accounts with parental monitoring and restriction tools; a separate bill would establish a federal study of AI-enabled toys.
- A former federal CISO warned that collecting, storing or validating identity data for age checks can expand the attack surface and potential breach impact; privacy groups also question the data-collection tradeoff.
Article Details
- Event Type
- Planned Senate Commerce Committee markup of five bills addressing online privacy, child safety, age verification, and AI safeguards.
- Impact
- The proposed bills would impose new requirements on online platforms and AI companies, including parental controls, age verification, chatbot safeguards, limits on minors’ data use, and a federal study of AI-enabled toys. The article describes proposed legislation, not enacted measures. Supporters say the bills would improve safety and privacy; critics warn that age verification could increase the collection and exposure of sensitive identity information, and organizations oppose changes they view as weakening platform duties of care.
People
Adam SchiffU.S. senator and co-sponsor of the Chatbot Act, which would require family accounts for AI chatbots.Brian SchatzU.S. senator and co-sponsor of the Chatbot Act, which would require family accounts for AI chatbots.Ed MarkeyU.S. senator behind the Youth AI Privacy Act, which would establish safeguards for AI chatbots and minors’ data.India McKinneyElectronic Frontier Foundation director of federal affairs who argued that the SCREEN Act’s age-verification requirements would apply broadly to online services.John CurtisU.S. senator and co-sponsor of the Chatbot Act, which would require family accounts for AI chatbots.Louis EichenbaumFormer chief information security officer at the Department of the Interior who commented on privacy and security risks from collecting, storing, or validating identity information for age verification.Marsha BlackburnU.S. senator and co-sponsor of the Senate version of the Kids Online Safety Act.Mike LeeU.S. senator who introduced the SCREEN Act, which would require age-verification technology for social media companies.Richard BlumenthalU.S. senator and co-sponsor of the Senate version of the Kids Online Safety Act.Tammy DuckworthU.S. senator behind the Children’s Artificial Intelligence Toy Safety Act, which would establish a federal study of AI-enabled toys sold to children.Ted CruzU.S. senator and co-sponsor of the Chatbot Act, which would require family accounts for AI chatbots.