US House passes KIDS Act consolidating online child safety proposals
Guardii Analysis
On 29 June 2026, the US House of Representatives passed the Kids Internet and Digital Safety KIDS Act, which consolidates a variety of legislative proposals aimed at protecting children and teens online, including an updated version of COPPA 2.0 that broadens coverage to minors under 17, prohibits targeted advertising to minors, requires an eraser button to delete minors' personal data, and includes data broker disclosure requirements. The Senate passed a similar but not identical version of COPPA 2.0 in March 2026, and data brokers who knowingly disclose the personal data of minors for consideration would be required to register with the FTC and file information about their businesses in a publicly available searchable registry.
Expanded age thresholds and advertising prohibitions address the business model but not the immediate threat a child faces when a conversation turns coercive. Guardii's real-time detection surfaces the moment a direct message exhibits sustained targeting, escalation or coercion, flagging grooming, sextortion and CSAM exchange including AI-generated or deepfake imagery as it occurs on Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other platforms. The technology reports the shape and seriousness of a conversation rather than its content, surfacing a child in crisis to a parent, school or professional and enabling rapid escalation to law enforcement in an emergency, intercepting the threat pattern regardless of whether the platform has implemented the privacy settings or advertising restrictions a regulatory framework requires.