Congress expands teen privacy rules, restricts targeted ads to minors
H.R. 6291 — Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act · Filed by Tim Walberg (R-MI) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Nov 25, 2025 · Markup held
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What it does
This bill expands the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) to cover teenagers ages 13–16 in addition to children under 13, and strengthens protections by restricting targeted advertising, requiring clearer parental consent, and giving teens direct rights to access, delete, and correct their personal data. It also creates a new category of 'high-impact social media companies' (those with $3B+ revenue and 300M+ monthly users) subject to stricter rules, and requires the FTC to assess whether a single 'common consent mechanism' could streamline parental authorization across multiple platforms.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core function is to extend and strengthen COPPA protections to teenagers and restrict targeted advertising to minors. It is a straightforward consumer-protection measure with no hidden mechanisms or narrow carve-outs.
What the text implies
- The 'common verifiable consent mechanism' provision may create a single-sign-on system for parental consent across platforms, potentially reducing friction for data collection if not carefully regulated—the FTC must assess feasibility, but the bill does not mandate strong safeguards for such a system.
- Educational institutions can now collect student data without parental consent if they have a written agreement with an operator, shifting consent authority from parents to schools; this may reduce transparency for parents of students in schools that sign such agreements.
- The bill permits operators to terminate service to teens who refuse data collection, but only if the service cannot function without that data; the boundary between 'necessary' and 'unnecessary' data is left to FTC regulation and may be contested.
- High-impact social media companies face stricter 'knowledge' standards (actual knowledge OR willful disregard) compared to other operators (actual knowledge only), creating a two-tier enforcement regime that may incentivize platforms to avoid learning users' ages.
Who it affects
Ordinary people—especially parents and teenagers—gain stronger privacy protections, clearer disclosure of data practices, and direct control over personal information. The bill restricts the most invasive form of data exploitation (targeted advertising based on personal profiles) and gives teens agency over their own data. The main trade-off is that some services may become harder to access without data sharing, but the bill permits service continuation where technically feasible.
Who stands to gain
- Privacy-focused technology vendors
- Consent management platform providers
- Data security and compliance software firms
Named in the bill
Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), High-impact social media companies, Educational agencies and institutions, Online service operators, Mobile application providers
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Republicans.
- Nov 25, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Nov 25, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Energy and Commerce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade”
- Dec 11, 2025 — Markup held in committee · Congress.gov: “Subcommittee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
39 lobbying clients named this bill on 53 disclosure filings across 3 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $94,617,667 in lobbying spend. A filing names 21 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 99% of bills with at least one filing.
Tim Walberg, the sponsor, reported $825,948 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle. $12,000 of that came from 3 PACs tied to these lobbying clients.
- Chamber of Commerce of the U.S.A. — $54,660,000 on 3 filings
- Google Client Services LLC — $6,920,000 on 2 filings
- Meta Platforms, Inc. and Various Subsidiaries — $5,990,000 on 1 filing
- National Retail Federation — $3,881,000 on 2 filings
- Ctia-the Wireless Association — $3,640,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the full bill text on Jul 5, 2026; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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