Congress Must Get Children’s Online Privacy Right

In Washington, lawmakers are weighing a series of proposals to protect children online. Of course, kids' safety in the digital world is an important goal. However, various proposals outline regulatory requirements designed to protect children with some more effective than others. One measure often discussed as a solution to questions surrounding children's safety is the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). While well-intentioned, KOSA falls short of its goals and may put children at greater risk online. As Congress searches for solutions, it's critical that leaders consider the unintended consequences of sweeping privacy legislation and work toward protections that truly keep kids safe.

At the heart of the concerns surrounding KOSA is its "duty of care" provision, which would compel online platforms to remove content deemed "harmful" to minors. While this sounds good in theory, critics warn that vaguely defined standards could be used to censor legitimate speech by partisan actors given authority to determine the definition of "harmful content." Religious groups and LGBTQ+ communities for example, have expressed fear this could lead to the suppression of their voices online.

Additionally, while KOSA is supposed to protect children and their private data online, the bill may force them to surrender even more personal information. By requiring covered platforms to block children from viewing harmful content online, KOSA effectively mandates age verification to determine which users are and are not kids. That would force platforms to collect sensitive data to identify minors online, an outcome that's not only counterproductive to the KOSA's stated goal, but also creates a new set of privacy risks.

As Congress continues to consider children's online safety legislation this year, we urge lawmakers to include tried-and-true privacy and safety principles, such as those laid out in SIIA's Child Privacy and Safety Principles. We believe that legislation should ensure that children, teens, and families have clear, accessible information about how platforms operate and the tools to control their own settings. Just as important, Congress should secure children's data, guaranteeing that online platforms are only collecting what is necessary so that efforts to safeguard young users don't end up creating new risks. Grounding reforms in these principles would strengthen online safety while avoiding the overreach and unintended harms that KOSA threatens to unleash.

Lawmakers must reject privacy legislation that, in practice, would fail to achieve its stated objectives and instead lead to a loss of First Amendment rights, less innovation, and ultimately a less private internet. By empowering government overreach and eroding free expression, KOSA risks creating a digital environment that should give every American pause. Rather than hastily passing flawed legislation, Congress must take a more measured approach that ensures any new laws genuinely protect privacy and safety without sacrificing the fundamental principles of a free and open internet.