Not to be confused with the EU KIDS Act, a European Commission proposal of September 2026 with the same short name.
The Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act (KIDS Act), designated H.R. 7757 in the 119th Congress, is a bipartisan youth online-safety package passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on June 29, 2026, by a 267–117 vote under suspension of the rules. It bundles a broad set of youth online-safety, privacy, AI, gaming, messaging, age-verification, and data-broker measures into a single bill, and now moves to the Senate, where members are pursuing differing proposals (Source: pillsburylaw.com; Source: 5calls.org). Its relevance to AI policy stems chiefly from its SAFE Bots Act title, which would impose safeguards on AI chatbots used by minors.
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Bill number | H.R. 7757 (119th Congress) |
| Sponsors | House Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie and Ranking Member Frank Pallone |
| Revised text released | June 22, 2026 |
| House passage | June 29, 2026, 267–117, under suspension of the rules |
| Status | Passed House; referred to the Senate |
| Enforcement | Federal Trade Commission (for the privacy and data-broker titles) |
Legislative background
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie and Ranking Member Frank Pallone released revised legislative text for the KIDS Act on June 22, 2026, following a bipartisan agreement, after the bill first advanced out of committee in March 2026 (Source: pillsburylaw.com). The House passed the measure on June 29, 2026. Representative Brett Guthrie framed the bill as addressing harms "ranging from social media to gaming to artificial intelligence," while Senator Richard Blumenthal and a coalition led by Design It For Us criticized the removal of a "duty of care" provision (Source: k12dive.com). Advocacy groups including EFF-aligned campaigns opposed the package (Source: 5calls.org).
The package consolidates portions of several previously separate bills: the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), COPPA 2.0, the Safe Messaging for Kids Act, the SPY Kids Act, the Safer GAMING Act, the SAFE Bots Act, and data-broker disclosure provisions, along with online-safety education and research measures (Source: pillsburylaw.com). Politico counted 14 consolidated proposals in the compromise text unveiled the week before passage and described the bill's Senate prospects as uncertain, with the omitted duty of care the key sticking point (Source: politico.com; iapp.org).
AI chatbot safeguards (SAFE Bots Act title)
The KIDS Act's SAFE Bots Act provisions treat AI chatbots as a youth-safety issue and apply to chatbot providers for users the provider knows are minors, with "knows" defined to include "should have known." The provisions would (Source: pillsburylaw.com):
- prohibit a chatbot from telling a covered minor user that it is a licensed professional unless that statement is true;
- require clear and conspicuous disclosure that the chatbot is an AI system and not a natural person;
- require crisis-resource disclosures when a covered user prompts the chatbot about suicide or suicidal ideation;
- require the chatbot to advise a covered minor user to take a break after a continuous three-hour interaction; and
- require reasonable policies, practices, and procedures to address risks involving sexual exploitation and abuse, gambling, narcotic drugs, tobacco, and alcohol.
The chatbot title carries its own relationship-to-state-laws provision that follows the package's general conflicts-based approach and preserves state laws providing greater protection to minors; it does not appear to broadly preempt state AI laws, though federal preemption of state AI regulation remained a contested issue in parallel negotiations (Source: pillsburylaw.com).
COPPA 2.0 provisions
The package's COPPA 2.0 title would expand the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. It would redefine "child" as an individual under 14 — bringing 13-year-olds into the parental-consent framework — and define "teen" as an individual at least 14 and under 18, creating new teen protections through age 17. It would adopt a constructive-knowledge standard under which "knowledge" means an operator has actual knowledge or "should have known" that a user is a child or teen (Source: pillsburylaw.com).
On advertising, the title would prohibit operators with covered knowledge from collecting, using, disclosing, or maintaining a child's or teen's personal information for "individual-specific advertising," while retaining exceptions for contextual advertising, advertising in response to a specific request, measurement and reporting, and age-appropriate marketing that does not use personal information other than whether the user is under 18. It would add data-minimization and retention limits and require direct notice before storing or transferring a minor's personal information outside the United States (Source: pillsburylaw.com).
Duty of care and preemption
The House version expressly states that its platform-safeguards provision should not be construed to impose a duty of care on covered platforms — a central point of difference with the Senate's KOSA framework, which has treated a duty of care to prevent and mitigate specified harms to minors as a central feature. Analysts identified this difference as likely to be one of the most significant issues in House–Senate negotiation, determining whether a final bill is framed around tools, defaults, disclosures, and specific prohibited practices or around a broader design-based obligation (Source: pillsburylaw.com).
On preemption, the revised text generally uses a conflicts-based standard and provides that states may enact or enforce laws providing greater protection to minors, narrowing earlier concerns that House drafts could override stronger state laws. The package also adds data-broker registration and disclosure requirements, directing covered data brokers to register with the FTC and the FTC to create a public, searchable registry (Source: pillsburylaw.com).
State attorneys-general opposition
A bipartisan coalition of state and territorial attorneys general wrote to congressional leadership on May 26, 2026 — a month before the House vote, and so addressed to a draft preceding the revisions described above — opposing the bill on preemption grounds. The letter states that the bill "would preempt conflicting state law in each covered domain," citing §§ 106, 221, 237, 244, 304 and 407, and that although § 601(b) permits limited enforcement by state attorneys general, § 601 "empowers federal preemption and intervention of such enforcement in all cases." Its AI-specific objection is that the Artificial Intelligence Chatbots provisions "include a gaping enforcement loophole for AI chat functions that can be construed as 'incidental' to the platform's 'primary purpose'," citing § 402(1)(B) (State Attorneys General letter opposing the KIDS Act, H.R. 7757 (May 2026)).
The letter makes three further objections to the Kids Online Safety title: that it "expressly disavow[s] any duty of care" (§ 213(c)(2)); that a further section "specifically disclaims any age assurance obligation for covered platforms" (§ 220); and that the bill "permits market and product-focused research on minors under the guise of 'privacy, security, transparency, or safety'" (§ 243(a)(1)). The signatories say that many state attorneys general instead support the Kids Online Safety Act, S. 1748, which "preserves states' authority to enact laws, rules, or regulations that similarly protect children" and "imposes upon online platforms a meaningful duty of care," and argue that "it is too soon to shut down the 'laboratories of democracy'" (State Attorneys General letter opposing the KIDS Act, H.R. 7757 (May 2026)).
The duty-of-care objection tracks the House–Senate difference described above, which analysts writing after passage identified as the central negotiating issue; the attorneys general reached the same point a month earlier and treated it as disqualifying rather than as a matter for negotiation.
The letter was sponsored by the attorneys general of Connecticut, Hawaii, Ohio and Tennessee. The National Association of Attorneys General puts the coalition at 44 and enumerates the joining jurisdictions, a list that supplies exactly the five missing from the 39 signature blocks legible in the Minnesota Attorney General's copy (Source: naag.org). Two other figures appear in accounts of the same letter: the New York Attorney General's release describes James joining 44 other attorneys general, which would make 45 (Letitia James), and secondary coverage summarized at AI and Children describes a 43-AG coalition.
Relationships
- related: AI Companions — the SAFE Bots Act title targets AI companion/chatbot systems used by minors
- related: AI and Children — cross-cutting minor-protection concerns the bill addresses
- related: TAKE IT DOWN Act — related federal youth/online-safety statute addressing AI-enabled harms
- related: Federal Trade Commission (FTC) — enforcing agency for the privacy and data-broker titles
- contradicts: Letitia James · Keith Ellison — signatories to the May 26, 2026 multistate letter opposing the bill on preemption grounds
- related: AI Federalism · Reverse Federalism — the state-authority question the preemption titles raise
- related: EU KIDS Act (proposed Regulation on the protection of minors online) — unrelated EU proposal sharing the short name "KIDS Act"
Sources
- Pillsbury, "House Passes Bipartisan KIDS Act Package…" (Jun 30, 2026) — detailed provision analysis; cites H.R. 7757 bill text (Source: pillsburylaw.com)
- K-12 Dive, "House passes Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act" (Jun 30, 2026) (Source: k12dive.com)
- 5 Calls, "Oppose KOSA and the KIDS Act — PASSED HOUSE" (updated Jun 29, 2026) — records the 267–117 vote and H.R. 7757 designation (Source: 5calls.org)
- H.R. 7757 bill text (as passed under suspension) (Source: d1dth6e84htgma.cloudfront.net)
- State Attorneys General, letter to congressional leadership opposing H.R. 7757, published by the Minnesota Attorney General's Office (2026-05-26) (State Attorneys General letter opposing the KIDS Act, H.R. 7757 (May 2026))