Sponsors (2)
The bill strengthens protections and privacy for minors online and gives regulators enforcement power, but does so at the risk of wrongful account removals, added compliance costs, potential loss of investigative evidence, and legal uncertainty for platforms.
Children and teens under 16 will be blocked from maintaining accounts on platforms that knowingly target them, reducing their exposure to age‑inappropriate content and online harms.
Parents and terminated users can retrieve personal data for up to 90 days in both human‑readable and machine‑readable formats, preserving access to information and easing data portability after account removal.
Children, parents, and families have stronger privacy protections during age‑verification appeals because platforms may request only minimal evidence, must decide quickly (within 5 days), and are barred from reusing or selling submitted appeal data.
Children, teens, and parents risk wrongful account terminations if platforms quickly remove identified under‑16 accounts, potentially disrupting legitimate teen or parent‑managed accounts and access to communications or content.
Platform operators and tech workers will incur administrative and technical compliance costs (age verification, data deletion/export, appeal systems) that could be passed on to users or reduce platform features over time.
Law enforcement and child‑safety investigators may be hindered because strict deletion and limited data retention rules could prevent platforms from preserving evidence needed for safety investigations or lawful requests related to abuse or criminal activity involving minors.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires platforms to identify, notify, terminate, and delete accounts of 'covered users', provide data export and appeals, and subjects violations to FTC enforcement.
Official title: To prohibit certain platforms from allowing covered users to create or maintain an account or profile on such platforms, and for other purposes.
Introduced September 10, 2026 by Erin Houchin · Last progress September 10, 2026
Prohibits covered online platforms from allowing individuals identified as “covered users” to create or maintain accounts, and requires platforms to locate, notify, terminate, and delete accounts belonging to such users on a statutory timetable. The bill requires platforms to provide a limited appeals and age‑verification process, permit short-term data export in human- and machine-readable formats, and makes violations enforceable by the Federal Trade Commission under unfair or deceptive acts and practices authority.