NEWS: Sens. Schiff, Curtis Unveil New Bipartisan Legislation to Protect Children from AI Chatbot Risks

Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senators Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and John Curtis (R-Utah), member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, introduced new bipartisan legislation to protect children from the risks and harms associated with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots. The commonsense framework in the bill addresses growing concerns about kids' reliance on AI chatbots for emotional support and companionship.

Among its provisions, the Safeguarding AI Features to Ensure Kids' Informed Digital Safety (SAFE KIDS) Act mandates the implementation of design guardrails and parental settings to prevent exposure to sexually explicit material, prohibit emotional manipulation or dependence, and require parental notification for scenarios involving imminent risk or potential self-harm.

The bill also prohibits advertising to or targeting child users and the sale of children's personal information without parental consent. The legislation further requires AI chatbot providers to utilize age estimation technology in their products to determine whether a user is a child.

"AI chatbots that promote companionship pose significant risks to young and developing minds. Already we have heard tragic stories of kids who have been influenced by the powerful, and still sometimes unpredictable, outputs of an AI chatbot," said Senator Schiff. "These chatbots can represent the power of the entire internet in a humanlike form, and impressionable kids need to be protected from its worst impulses - and from seeing their data misused by the companies behind them. The SAFE KIDS Act represents a comprehensive bipartisan attempt to protect our children and ensure that their first experiences with this revolutionary technology are free from harm."

"Parents deserve confidence that AI tools are not exposing their children to harmful content, fostering unhealthy emotional dependence, or exploiting their personal information," said Senator Curtis. "The SAFE KIDS Act puts commonsense guardrails in place to protect children online while preserving American leadership in innovation. We need clear standards for transparency, accountability, and child safety so families can navigate the opportunities and risks of emerging technologies with confidence."

Specifically, the SAFE KIDS Act would:

• Require that AI chatbot providers conduct rigorous, ongoing risk assessments and implement robust safeguards before making systems available to children.
• Prohibit any advertising to child users, as well as all child-targeted behavioral advertising, and ban the sale or sharing of a child's personal data without verifiable parental consent.
• Ban the generation of sexual deepfakes and strictly prohibit AI chatbots from mimicking human emotions to isolate children or foster unhealthy emotional dependence.
• Require providers to build documented protocols that offer immediate external crisis resources and prompt parental notifications if a minor is at risk of imminent harm, including suicidal ideation or self-harm. 
• Mandate annual, independent child safety audits to ensure full compliance with the law, with transparency summaries published for the public.
• Compel providers to utilize secure age estimation technology to properly differentiate accounts held by children from adults while strictly protecting the privacy of that data.

A section-by-section summary of the bill can be found here.

The full text of the legislation can be found here.

Background:

Since joining the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, Senator Schiff has worked to elevate the importance of protecting children online and address these chatbot risks.

Following the tragic death last year of Adam Raine, a 16-year-old from Rancho Santa Margarita, California, who took his own life after months of conversations with an AI chatbot, Schiff and U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) urged the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to address the full range of risks and potential harms that AI chatbots pose to American children and teenagers.

Last year, Schiff and the Judiciary Committee held a hearing examining the legal gaps in protecting children on the internet with testimony from industry and academic experts.

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