S4199-119

What This Bill Does

The Youth AI Privacy Act applies when an AI-chatbot deployer or developer knows, or objective circumstances fairly imply, that a user is under 18. Deployers must tell the minor at the start of every session and at least every 30 minutes that the user is not speaking with a human and that the content is AI-generated. Within one year, the FTC must limit how long current-session personal data may shape responses and prohibit rewards for use, non-required push alerts, activity badges, unsolicited outputs, and human-like usage traces such as typing indicators. The bill bars advertising to known minors, financially influenced product recommendations, profiling, use or transfer of a minor's personal data for model training, and most processing of minor input outside a short current-session window. Testing and addressing user-harm risks remain permitted. It protects workers who report violations from retaliation. It adds AI chatbots to federal youth-media health research and authorizes $50 million annually for fiscal years 2027-2030, and requires HHS surveys to measure use, age of first use, context, effects, and harmful exposure. The FTC enforces the design, privacy, and whistleblower rules; state attorneys general may seek injunctions, damages, restitution, and other relief; and a minor's parent or guardian may sue for design or privacy violations and seek actual or punitive damages, fees, costs, and equitable relief. Conflicting state rules are preempted, but stronger state protections remain allowed, and the bill is severable. The knowledge test uses competent evidence and total circumstances, requires FTC guidance within 180 days, and does not force new age-data collection, age gating, or age verification; guidance itself cannot create liability.

Who Benefits and How

Minors using AI chatbots benefit from clear and recurring nonhuman disclosures, reduced addictive and anthropomorphic engagement features, no targeted advertising or profiling, tightly limited session personalization, and strong restrictions on training or transferring their personal data. Parents and legal guardians benefit from a direct civil remedy for design and privacy violations, including possible actual and punitive damages, attorney's fees, costs, injunctions, and declaratory relief. Employees and contractors who raise or investigate compliance concerns benefit from a federal ban on firing, demotion, threats, harassment, discrimination, or other retaliation. Youth-health researchers, public-health officials, clinicians, and policymakers benefit from $200 million in authorized research funding and standardized national data about chatbot use and perceived effects.

Who Bears the Burden and How

AI chatbot deployers must determine when objective circumstances imply minority, deliver recurring disclosures, redesign engagement, sharply limit personalization and input retention, stop profiling and minor-data training, and maintain evidence of compliance. AI chatbot developers must remove prohibited engagement and advertising features for known minors, prevent training uses and transfers, protect whistleblowers, and face federal, state, and private litigation exposure. Digital advertisers and model-training businesses lose access to minor-directed promotion, profiling, and chatbot conversation data that would otherwise support targeting or training. Federal Trade Commission rulemaking and enforcement staff, state attorneys general, federal courts, HHS, CDC, and NIH assume regulations, guidance, investigations, litigation, research administration, and survey-design work. Federal taxpayers bear the authorized research cost.

Key Provisions

• Requires clear AI disclosures at every session start and at least once every 30 minutes for known minor users.
• Directs FTC rules limiting session-data use and prohibiting engagement rewards, push alerts, badges, unsolicited outputs, and human-like usage indicators.
• Prohibits advertising, financially influenced recommendations, profiling, model training, training-data transfers, and most out-of-window input processing for known minors.
• Protects workers who raise concerns, report violations, or cooperate with investigations from retaliation.
• Authorizes $50 million annually for fiscal years 2027-2030 for research on health and developmental effects and requires AI-chatbot questions in national HHS surveys.
• Establishes FTC enforcement, state-attorney-general actions, and parent or guardian lawsuits with damages and equitable remedies.
• Preempts only conflicting state law, preserves stronger state protections, and makes the federal provisions severable.
• Uses a totality-of-circumstances knowledge test while prohibiting any inference that deployers must newly collect age data or implement age verification.