US Senators Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Update COPPA for AI and Social Media Risks

United States Senators Maria Cantwell and Marsha Blackburn introduced the Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act, a bipartisan measure that would raise the age of protected users under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act from 12 to 16 and require platforms to obtain affirmative consent before collecting, using or sharing personal data of teenagers aged 13 to 16. The proposed legislation also bans targeted advertising to minors, prohibits platforms from recommending content that poses a danger to mental health or physical safety, and requires companies to provide tools that allow parents and teens to delete personal information. The bill mandates the establishment of an Eraser Button feature and a Youth Privacy and Marketing Division within the Federal Trade Commission to enforce compliance.

Consent and data-minimisation requirements establish important privacy safeguards but do not directly prevent the manipulative conversations that produce harm. Guardii's anti-grooming, anti-sextortion and cyberbullying-detection modules, developed by a team backed by Startmate, analyse the structure and escalation of direct-message exchanges in real time across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and other platforms. The system detects coercion, sustained targeting and predatory patterns without collecting or retaining message content, reporting the shape and seriousness of a conversation rather than handing anyone a feed of what was said. This approach aligns with the data-minimisation principles the bill advances while addressing the immediate operational threat: surfacing a child in crisis to a parent or safeguarding professional and enabling emergency escalation to the right authority.