STOP CSAM Act of 2025
- senate
Strengthens protections for child victims and witnesses, expands privacy and courtroom accommodations, and funds court implementation. Requires online service providers to report apparent child sexual exploitation to the NCMEC CyberTipline within time limits, adds penalties for failures, and creates a new private right of action and damages against platforms and app stores that promote, host, or aid child sexual abuse material. The bill also improves restitution rules (including trustee-managed victim accounts), authorizes funding to support those changes, preserves other federal/state/tribal victim rights, and includes severability rules.
Adds and revises definitions in 18 U.S.C. §3509, including: (a) expanding covered offenses to include kidnapping (including international parental kidnapping) and changing “physical or mental injury” to “physical injury, psychological abuse”; (b) defining “psychological abuse” (pattern of acts, threats, coercive tactics; isolation; withholding necessities; physical restraint; confinement); (c) defining “exploitation” to include child pornography, child sex trafficking, and an obscene visual depiction of a child; (d) defining “multidisciplinary child abuse team” (members from health, social service, legal service agencies, law enforcement/prosecutors, and children’s advocacy centers); (e) defining “covered person” (a person of any age who was under 18 when the alleged crime occurred and who is a victim or witness); (f) defining “protected information” for a covered person to include personally identifiable information, medical/behavioral records, educational or juvenile justice records, and other court-ordered protected items; (g) defining “child pornography” and “obscene visual depiction of a child” by reference to existing statute definitions.
Change wording in subsection (b) to replace “minor” with “child” and require that a video recording of a deposition (including a child’s deposition) be made and preserved; replaces older “videotape/videotaped” wording with modern terms like “video recording” or “recorded.”
Replace references to the name or information “concerning a child” with a covered person’s “protected information” throughout subsection (d); expands who is treated as having reason to know protected information (including witnesses or potential witnesses).
Authorize $25,000,000 to be appropriated to the United States courts for each fiscal year to carry out subsection (h). Payments from this authorization are to be made under the supervision of the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.
Victim impact information for presentence reports: probation officers must request information from the multidisciplinary child abuse team (if applicable) or other appropriate sources to determine the impact of the offense on a child victim and any other children who may have been affected.
Who is affected and how:
Children who are victims or witnesses of sexual exploitation: Gain stronger privacy protections, limits on public release of identifying information, required courtroom accommodations (recordings, protective measures), and clearer routes to restitution. Some protections are applied to conduct occurring before enactment for covered provisions.
Crime victims generally (including foreign victims): Benefit from improved restitution rules and the option for courts to appoint trustees/fiduciaries to manage restitution funds for victims who cannot manage payments themselves; foreign-victim safeguards are included.
Online platforms, app stores, and interactive computer service providers: Face new duties to detect, preserve, and report apparent child sexual exploitation to NCMEC within deadlines; must include new data fields; large providers must publish annual transparency reports; face criminal penalties and heightened civil liability (including large liquidated damages or actual damages and no statute of limitations). These requirements increase compliance, monitoring, and legal costs and could spur changes to content moderation, product design, or app distribution policies.
Law enforcement and NCMEC: Will receive more systematic and timely reporting from providers, which could improve investigations and victim recovery but also increase workload and require resource adjustments.
Courts and probation officers, guardians ad litem: Must follow expanded duties and privacy rules, implement accommodations, and manage trustee accounts; the law authorizes funding to help implement these changes but will still require administrative adjustments.
Consumers and the public: Indirectly affected by changes in platform behavior (moderation, encryption handling, app availability) and potential increases in litigation or content removal; some technical tradeoffs may arise around encryption, data retention, and user privacy.
Overall effect: The bill shifts responsibilities onto online service providers and app stores while strengthening statutory protections and remedies for child victims, increasing both enforcement and civil-liability pressure on digital platforms. The law aims to accelerate reporting and improve victim outcomes but may raise operational and constitutional questions (e.g., encryption, data privacy, and platform liability) that could lead to litigation challenges.
Last progress June 11, 2025 (7 months ago)
Introduced on June 11, 2025 by Barry Moore
STOP CSAM Act of 2025
Updated 3 hours ago
Last progress May 21, 2025 (8 months ago)
Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
