House passes the KIDS Act 267-117 and sends it to a divided Senate

The House passed the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act on June 29 by a vote of 267 to 117, sending the chamber's version of a children's online safety bill to the Senate. The vote came under suspension of the rules, a fast-track process that requires two-thirds support of the members present, so the margin reflects backing from both parties.

The bill, H.R. 7757, is a package. It folds about a dozen separate measures into one vehicle, including a House version of the Kids Online Safety Act, an update to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act known as COPPA 2.0, the Safe Messaging for Kids Act, the SPY Kids Act, the Safer GAMING Act, and the SAFE Bots Act, along with data broker disclosure rules and online safety research provisions. Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and ranking member Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., released the revised text on June 22 after the committee advanced an earlier version in March.

What the bill would do

The COPPA 2.0 section would change who the law covers. It defines a "child" as someone under 14, which pulls 13-year-olds into the parental-consent framework that now applies only to children under 13, and it defines a "teen" as someone at least 14 and under 18, a group the current law does not reach. It adds a "should have known" knowledge standard, so an operator's obligations can attach when it has reason to know a user is a minor, not only when it has actual knowledge.

The same section would bar operators from collecting, using, or sharing a child's or teen's personal information for "individual-specific advertising," while keeping exceptions for contextual ads, ads served in response to a search, and advertising measurement. It would add limits on how long companies can keep minors' data and would require direct notice before a company stores or transfers that data outside the United States.

For platforms, the bill would require safety tools for users known to be minors: limits on who can message them, restrictions on recommending their profiles to other users, controls over whether their online status is visible, and limits on design features tied to compulsive use. It would require those settings to default to the most protective option.

The SAFE Bots provisions apply to chatbot providers when they know, or should have known, that a user is a minor. A chatbot could not tell a minor it is a licensed professional unless that is true. It would have to disclose that it is an AI system and not a person, point users to crisis resources when a minor raises suicide, and advise a break after a continuous three-hour session.

Covered data brokers would have to register with the Federal Trade Commission within 12 months of enactment and each year after, and the FTC would build a public, searchable registry within 18 months. The bill says federal registration would not excuse a broker from registering under state laws.

The fight the House vote did not settle

The House and Senate versions differ on one point that both sides call central: the "duty of care."

The Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., would require platforms to prevent and mitigate a list of harms to minors, including eating disorders, compulsive use, and anxiety. The House bill does not include that requirement, and its text states the provision should not be read to impose a duty of care. It instead directs platforms to "establish, implement, maintain, and enforce reasonable policies, practices, and procedures" against a narrower set of harms: threats of physical violence, sexual exploitation and abuse, illegal drugs, gambling, and financial harm from deceptive practices.

Blackburn, who is running for governor of Tennessee, criticized the House approach when the revised text came out. "Without a duty of care, Big Tech companies will maintain the status quo of putting profit before the safety of our children," she said in a statement reported by Roll Call, adding that a federal standard is needed so companies "can't design their products to addict, exploit, and harm America's children." Her bill, S. 1748, is awaiting a markup in the Senate Commerce Committee. Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has not set a date. An industry source told Roll Call a markup is expected in July.

Two Democratic co-sponsors of the Senate bill asked the House to hold off. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., the ranking member on Senate Commerce, said the House had not left enough time to study the text and that the House version could let platforms get lawsuits dismissed, pointing to cases companies recently lost in New Mexico and California. "That's why it's so important to have them slow down and hear from the families and understand what the impact is," she said. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said the House bill is weaker without the duty-of-care language. "We need to stop this bill in the House," he said.

Industry and civil liberties objections

Neither version has industry support, though tech groups prefer the House's. Zach Lilly of NetChoice called the amended House bill "a real effort to improve upon" the Senate approach, which he described as a censorship regime, but said any bill that treats legal speech as harmful would run into the same First Amendment problems.

The American Civil Liberties Union raised its own free-speech concern about the House text. Jenna Leventoff, a senior policy counsel at the group, said the bill still contains a vague provision that could push platforms to remove lawful content. She gave an example: a platform trying to block sexual exploitation might filter the word "sex" and take down sex education or material about sexual orientation along with it. Leventoff said she expects both bills to clear their chambers, and predicted the two sides will have trouble reaching a compromise.

What happens next

The bill now sits with the Senate, which has not scheduled floor action on any online safety measure. Blackburn has been working with the White House on a separate package that would pair her bill with a right to control one's own voice and likeness, age verification requirements, and preemption of some state laws on artificial intelligence. The administration has generally resisted new rules on the tech industry. The House vote moves one version through one chamber. It leaves open the duty-of-care question, the preemption question, and the age-verification question that have kept a federal children's online safety law from passing.