California enacts Kids Code requiring data protection impact assessments

California's Age-Appropriate Design Code Act has come into force after the state amended provisions challenged on First Amendment grounds, requiring businesses that provide online services, products or features likely to be accessed by children under 18 to conduct data protection impact assessments for risks including sexual exploitation, bullying and other harms. Covered businesses must configure privacy and safety settings to prioritise children's wellbeing by default, provide age-appropriate terms and enforce policies prohibiting harmful content and conduct. The Attorney General retains authority to investigate non-compliance and seek injunctive relief and civil penalties.

Statutory obligations to assess and mitigate risk create demand for technologies that identify harm as it develops without generating the privacy exposure a blanket monitoring regime would entail. Anti-grooming and anti-sextortion detection that intercepts escalating coercion in direct messages before a child is injured enables services to demonstrate effective mitigation in their impact assessments. Guardii, a world-leading AI safety platform and Meta Business Partner, detects harmful patterns across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other environments, reporting the shape and seriousness of a conversation rather than its content, blocking hostile contact before it reaches the target and surfacing a child in acute distress to the parent, school counsellor or law enforcement officer best positioned to intervene.