KIDS Act

Entirely new Title VI 'Kids Privacy Protections' added, containing Subtitle A (COPPA 2.0) which amends COPPA to extend protections to teens and adds requirements for collection, use, disclosure, and deletion of personal information, plus a GAO study on enforcement; and Subtitle B requiring data brokers to register.

Individual 'Relationship to State laws' preemption sections removed from Title I (Sec 106), Subtitle A (Sec 221), Title III (Sec 304), and Title IV (Sec 407). Replaced by a single consolidated preemption provision in new Section 704 under General Provisions.

Section 218 title changed from 'Advertising of illegal products' to 'Advertising of illegal products to minors,' narrowing the provision's scope to target only advertising directed at minors rather than all such advertising on the platform.

The entire old Subtitle B 'Safe Messaging for Kids' (Secs 231-238) was removed, including its prohibition on ephemeral messaging features for minors and direct messaging features for children. These protections are now partially incorporated into the teen messaging controls in Section 214(c) but with a less restrictive approach (controls rather than outright bans).

Section 214 now includes a new subsection (c) requiring platforms to provide 'teen messaging controls' to users aged 13-16, including notifications about unapproved contacts seeking to initiate direct or ephemeral messaging, ability to approve/deny such requests, manage contact lists, disable messaging features entirely, block specific users, and hide profiles.

Section 213(b) 'Considerations' reduced from two factors (size/complexity AND technical feasibility of addressing harms) to only one factor (size and complexity), removing the technical feasibility carve-out that could have excused platforms from implementing certain protections.

Section 103(a)(1) removed the requirement that technology verification measures be 'reasonably designed to ensure accuracy.' A new subsection (d) allows platforms to choose their specific verification technology as long as it meets the compliance requirements in subsection (b).

New safeguard in Section 214(a)(1)(C) requires platforms to prevent other users or visitors from seeing a minor's current online or offline status. A new subsection (a)(2) requires an option for minors to limit total time spent on the platform.

Section 216 no longer requires platforms to obtain 'verifiable parental consent' before applying safeguards or parental tools for minors. The requirement is now only to provide information to parents, a significant relaxation of the prior standard.

New definition of 'algorithm' added at the Act level, defined as any computational process used to rank, order, promote, recommend, amplify, or alter delivery of information. The 'fully automated system' definition was redefined to specifically reference algorithms whose outputs are displayed directly to users without platform review.

'Verifiable parental consent' renamed to 'verifiable consent' throughout, and the definition now references COPPA 'as amended by section 602(a)(5) of this Act,' tying it to the new COPPA 2.0 amendments in Title VI.

New Section 221 'Rule of construction on encryption' added, and old Section 220 'Rules of construction' (which broadly prohibited requiring age verification) replaced with a narrower 'Rule of construction on age verification' in Section 220.