Congress orders FTC to audit tech's child safety claims—no teeth, just transparency.
H.R. 6499 — Assessing Safety Tools for Parents and Minors Act · Filed by Russ Fulcher (R-ID) · 3 cosponsors · Introduced Dec 9, 2025 · Markup held
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What it does
This bill requires the Federal Trade Commission to review what the tech industry is doing to keep minors safe online—including parental controls, content labels, privacy settings, and educational tools—and report back to Congress within 3 years with findings on whether those efforts work and recommendations for improvement. It does not create new rules or restrictions; it is a fact-finding mandate.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is to require the FTC to conduct a review and report on industry safety practices. It creates no new law, no restrictions, and no direct benefits to any party—only a fact-finding and reporting obligation designed to inform Congress and the public.
What the text implies
- The 3-year timeline means findings will not be available until late 2027–2028, potentially delaying legislative action on online child safety.
- The bill exempts itself from the Paperwork Reduction Act, which normally requires OMB review of information-collection burdens; this is standard for legislative mandates but removes one layer of procedural scrutiny.
- The FTC's recommendations may create political pressure on industry to adopt voluntary standards, but the bill contains no enforcement mechanism or requirement that industry comply.
- Broad consultation requirement (parents, experts, industry) may dilute or delay findings if stakeholders disagree on what constitutes 'effectiveness.'
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Citizens gain transparency about what tech companies are actually doing to protect children online and receive expert recommendations for improvement. The bill creates no new restrictions on citizens or removal of existing protections; it is purely informational and accountability-focused.
Named in the bill
Federal Trade Commission (FTC), House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Tech industry (unnamed), Parents and minors (beneficiaries of transparency)
Where it stands
3 cosponsors: 3 Democrats.
- Dec 9, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Dec 9, 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
5 lobbying clients named this bill on 6 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $7,555,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 34 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 78% of bills with at least one filing.
Russ Fulcher, the sponsor, reported $350,070 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Google Client Services LLC — $6,920,000 on 2 filings
- News Media Alliance — $475,000 on 1 filing
- Technet — $80,000 on 1 filing
- Software & Information Industry Association (siia) — $60,000 on 1 filing
- Computer & Communications Industry Association — $20,000 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 bill text published by Congress.gov (1,581 characters) on Aug 11, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; 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.
“Congress orders FTC to audit tech's child safety claims—no teeth, just transparency.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr6499 Report an error
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