Congress mandates parental controls for AI chatbots targeting children
S. 4407 — CHATBOT Act · Filed by Ted Cruz (R-TX) · 3 cosponsors · Introduced Apr 28, 2026 · Reported out
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What it does
This bill requires AI chatbot companies to obtain parental consent before children and teens can use their services, establish family accounts with parental controls (time limits, notification monitoring, data deletion settings), prohibit targeted advertising to minors, and delete all personal data when accounts are terminated. The FTC and state attorneys general enforce compliance, and the bill mandates studies on chatbots' effects on child mental health and social development.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is a regulatory framework imposing parental-consent, data-protection, and advertising-restriction requirements on AI chatbot providers. It is functionally a consumer-protection and child-safety statute modeled on COPPA, not a subsidy, carve-out, or deregulation.
What the text implies
- The 'know' standard (actual knowledge or knowledge fairly implied on objective circumstances) may create compliance uncertainty for companies; they must make reasonable efforts to determine user age without mandatory age-verification systems, creating a gray zone in enforcement.
- The requirement to delete personal data from chatbot 'memory' (section 5) may force companies to redesign model training and inference pipelines, potentially increasing operational costs and affecting chatbot performance quality.
- The study requirement (section 10) on chatbot effects on child mental health and social engagement may generate evidence that informs future restrictions or liability frameworks, creating downstream regulatory risk for the industry.
- State attorneys general gain independent enforcement authority (section 8), potentially creating a patchwork of state-level interpretations and litigation, even though the bill preempts conflicting state laws.
- The transparency label requirement (always visible unless dismissed) may reduce user engagement and perceived utility of chatbots for minors, indirectly affecting adoption and revenue models.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Ordinary citizens—particularly parents and children—gain concrete protections: mandatory parental consent for teens, enforceable parental controls, prohibition on behavioral targeting of minors, and data deletion rights. These are substantive privacy and safety guardrails with no offsetting cost to the public. The bill does not shield companies from liability or create exemptions; it imposes obligations on them.
Named in the bill
Federal Trade Commission (FTC), National Science Foundation, Government Accountability Office (GAO), State attorneys general, AI chatbot providers (unnamed), Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Where it stands
3 cosponsors: 2 Democrats, 1 Republicans.
- Apr 28, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Apr 28, 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
15 lobbying clients named this bill on 15 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $10,801,909 in lobbying spend. A filing names 13 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 95% of bills with at least one filing.
Ted Cruz, the sponsor, reported $531,115 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Ctia-the Wireless Association — $3,640,000 on 1 filing
- American Association for Justice — $1,840,000 on 1 filing
- Software & Information Industry Association — $1,396,909 on 1 filing
- Entertainment Software Association — $1,390,000 on 1 filing
- National Education Association — $670,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 22, 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 (23,308 characters) on Aug 7, 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 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 22, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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