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119-s-4855119th CongressWALLET

SAFE KIDS Act

Sponsored By: Senator Curtis, John R. [R-UT]

Introduced

Summary

Protecting children from harmful AI chatbots. This bill would make the Federal Trade Commission the main regulator for AI chatbots aimed at kids and would require strict age checks, parental controls, safety testing, limits on data use, bans on child-targeted ads and sexualized content, and penalties for violations.

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  • Families and parents would get mandatory parental controls available via a browser or a separate parental app, with PINs, alerts for tampering, time and usage limits, and options to limit what the chatbot remembers or uses for training. Providers must promote these settings and run usability testing with parents and child users.
  • Children and other users would face enforced age-estimation rules that treat an age signal as the child’s age, require periodic re-evaluation, and prioritize the youngest indicated age when signals conflict. The bill would ban child-targeted advertising, prohibit creating or providing sexualized content involving minors, and bar manipulative design aimed at kids.
  • Providers and researchers would need child-safety risk assessments before launch, after major updates, and annually, plus red-teaming and independent audits with reports due within 90 days. The FTC would get enforcement authority and civil penalties of $1,000 per violation per user and $10,000 per willful violation, while whistleblowers gain protections and researchers can access anonymized audit data.

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Bill Overview

Analyzed Economic Effects

4 provisions identified: 4 benefits, 0 costs, 0 mixed.

Age checks, safety tests, and parental controls

If enacted, providers would have to use age-estimation tools and treat an age signal as the user's age unless they actually know otherwise. Providers would re-check ages periodically and limit, encrypt, and quickly delete age-estimation data. Providers would conduct child-safety risk assessments before offering chatbots to children, before major updates, and at least annually, and would document mitigations. Providers would offer browser-based or single-purpose parental controls that let parents limit memory, data used for training, features, time-of-day, and disable access for children under 13. Unverified accounts would be treated as child accounts until verified as age 18 under the law's standards.

Annual chatbot safety audits and reports

If enacted, providers would pay for yearly independent child-safety audits. Auditors would need relevant expertise and could not have been paid by the provider in the prior three years. Providers would submit audit reports to the Commission within 90 days of completion and post a redacted summary on their website within 90 days. The Commission would add a short public summary to a registry within 90 days and publish a yearly aggregated report of audit findings within one year. Approved researchers could request anonymized, aggregated audit data under strict controls.

Ban on child ads, harmful content, fines

If enacted, providers would be barred from advertising to child users or using or selling a child's personal information without verifiable parental consent. The bill would ban chatbots from giving children sexualized content, graphic violence, or material that encourages eating disorders or illegal acts. The bill would also ban manipulative designs that push children into purchases or isolate them from family. The Commission could enforce these rules under the FTC Act, and civil fines could be $1,000 per violation per user or $10,000 per violation per user for willful violations or false reporting.

Child-safety incident reports and protections

If enacted, the Commission would set up a way to report child-safety incidents within 180 days and publish standards for what counts as a reportable incident. The Commission would host a public page linking to each chatbot's child safety policy. Providers would also have to accept reports directly from parents, users, researchers, and others and provide those reports to law enforcement if requested. Employees and contractors who report child-safety risks to supervisors, the Commission, or Congress would be protected from retaliation.

Sponsors & CoSponsors

Sponsor

Curtis, John R. [R-UT]

UT • R

Cosponsors

  • Sen. Schiff, Adam B. [D-CA]

    CA • D

    Sponsored 6/23/2026

Roll Call Votes

No roll call votes available for this bill.

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