Big Tech forced to let users take their data and leave
S. 1634 — ACCESS Act of 2025 · Filed by Mark Warner (D-VA) · 2 cosponsors · Introduced May 7, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill requires large social media and communications platforms (those with over 100 million U.S. users that profit from user data) to allow users to port their data to competitors and to interoperate with rival services, reducing switching costs and enabling competition. It empowers the FTC to enforce these requirements and sets standards for data portability, interoperability interfaces, and third-party access to user accounts.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is mandating data portability and interoperability for large platforms to reduce consumer lock-in and enable switching. This is a structural competition measure, not a tax, subsidy, or commemorative provision.
What the text implies
- Platforms may respond by degrading interoperability or raising prices on data-export features, shifting compliance costs to users rather than eliminating switching barriers.
- The definition of 'large communications platform' (100M+ monthly active users, data monetization) may exclude emerging competitors, potentially entrenching current market leaders if smaller rivals cannot meet the threshold.
- FTC enforcement depends on appropriations and agency capacity; without adequate resources, the mandate may become a paper requirement with limited real-world effect.
- Custodial third-party agents (account managers) gain significant access to user data and account controls; the bill does not specify liability or security standards for these intermediaries, creating a new attack surface.
Who it affects
Ordinary users gain the ability to switch platforms without losing their data, contacts, or content—reducing lock-in and enabling competition that may lower prices and improve service quality. The bill does not restrict user rights or remedies; it restricts platform gatekeeping power, which is an accountability measure that benefits the public.
Who stands to gain
- emerging social media and communications platforms (smaller competitors gaining access to user bases
- data portability and interoperability software vendors
- consumer data management and account-switching service providers
Named in the bill
Federal Trade Commission (FTC), large communications platform providers, competing communications providers, custodial third-party agents, Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), X (Twitter), TikTok, Discord, Telegram, Bluesky
Where it stands
2 cosponsors: 1 Democrats, 1 Republicans.
- May 7, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- May 7, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $40,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 1 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 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Mark Warner, the sponsor, reported $2,246,650 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Imbue — $40,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 19, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI scored this bill from its title only — the full text has not been read; 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 Jun 2026 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 19, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Big Tech forced to let users take their data and leave” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s1634 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.