Sponsors (22)
The bill strengthens privacy, limits targeted advertising, and increases oversight for children and teens—giving families greater control and potential policy improvements—at the cost of higher compliance and operational burdens for online services (especially small businesses), legal uncertainty for operators, and possible reductions in features or access for youth.
Parents and teens (including children and youth) gain stronger control over kids' online personal information because operators must obtain verifiable consent and provide rights to access, correct, and delete that data.
Children and teens face reduced exposure to individually targeted advertising because the bill prohibits individualized ads to minors and limits use of persistent identifiers for profiling.
Congress, the FTC, and the public gain more transparency and evidence (through annual FTC reporting and a fintech study) to inform oversight and potential policy changes to improve online safety for minors.
Website and app operators, including many small businesses, will face higher compliance costs (new consent flows, data controls, documentation, and security measures), which could raise prices or reduce services for consumers.
Some online services may restrict features or stop offering service to children and teens if parents or teens exercise deletion rights or refuse consent, reducing available online experiences for youth.
Broader enforcement standards (expanded scienter by inference from circumstances) increase legal uncertainty and enforcement risk for operators, making compliance assessments harder and possibly inviting litigation.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Expands COPPA’s operator and personal-information definitions, raises the knowledge standard, requires FTC reports on child-directed apps, and mandates a GAO study on teens’ fintech privacy and mental health.
Introduced March 4, 2025 by Edward John Markey · Last progress March 16, 2026
Expands and tightens the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by broadening who counts as an “operator,” widening what counts as children’s personal information, and raising the standard for when an operator is treated as knowing information was collected. It also requires the Federal Trade Commission to produce an oversight report and annual enforcement reports on child-directed websites and apps, and directs the Government Accountability Office to study privacy and mental-health effects of fintech products used by teens, with specific report deadlines. A severability clause preserves the remainder of the law if any provision is struck down.