Law stops AI chatbots from tricking and manipulating kids.
S. 4199 — Youth AI Privacy Act · Filed by Ed Markey (D-MA) · Introduced Mar 25, 2026 · Reported out
Your members of Congress
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What it does
AI chatbot companies must tell kids they are talking to a machine. Companies cannot use tricks like notifications or badges to keep kids using the app. Companies cannot show kids ads based on what they know about them. Companies cannot keep kids' data for long or use it to train AI. Parents can sue companies that break these rules. The Federal Trade Commission will enforce the law.
Who it affects
Kids gain protection against chatbots designed to be addictive. Parents gain the power to sue companies. AI chatbot companies must change how they work.
One thing to notice
The bill does not require companies to check a user's age. Companies might claim they did not know a user was a kid.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
- Mar 25, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Mar 25, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation”
- Aug 5, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 2 reports from Jun 2026 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $3,230,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 90 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 41% of bills with any report.
Ed Markey, who sponsored the bill, received $581,110 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- American Association for Justice — $1,840,000 in 1 report
- Entertainment Software Association — $1,390,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- notifications — Messages sent to a person to get them to use an app.
- badges — Rewards shown to a person for using an app.
- Federal Trade Commission — A government agency that stops unfair business practices.
- enforce — To make sure a law is followed.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (22,596 characters) on Apr 14, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,206 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 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-09-17.
“Law stops AI chatbots from tricking and manipulating kids.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s4199/simple Report an error