Children Harmed by AI Technology Act

• Authority: United States Congress
• Parent authority: Federal government
• Jurisdiction: United States
• Collections: U.S. federal laws
• Most recent activity: Proposed
• Most recent activity date: 2026-01-22

Risk subdomain coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the risk subdomain are explicitly described.

• Exposure to toxic content
• Overreliance and unsafe use

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the risk subdomain are described.

• Compromise of privacy
• Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation
• Loss of human agency and autonomy
• Lack of transparency or interpretability

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document has good coverage of approximately 5 subdomains, with strong focus on exposure to toxic content (1.2), overreliance and unsafe use (5.1), privacy compromise (2.1), and fraud/manipulation (4.3). Coverage is concentrated in content safety, human-computer interaction harms, and child protection domains.

Sector coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the sector are explicitly described.

• Information

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the sector are described.

• Health Care & Social Assistance

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

The document primarily governs the Information sector, specifically companies that develop, operate, or make available companion AI chatbot applications. This includes software providers and technology platforms that offer conversational AI services designed for emotional interaction and companionship.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a Congressional bill with binding legal obligations enforced by the FTC, using mandatory language throughout and establishing penalties for non-compliance.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: The document is a Congressional bill proposed by the legislative branch of the U.S. government, as indicated by the standard enacting clause.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Developer, AI_Deployer
• Summary: The Act defines covered entities as those who own, operate, or make available companion AI chatbots, which encompasses both developers and deployers of these AI systems.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: The Act explicitly designates the FTC as the primary enforcement body with full authority under the Federal Trade Commission Act, and provides for state-level enforcement by attorneys general.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: The FTC is responsible for monitoring compliance through its enforcement authority, and state attorneys general have investigatory powers to monitor compliance within their jurisdictions.

AI Lifecycle Stages

Lifecycle stages covered by the documents, as defined in the OECD Framework for the Classification of AI Systems

• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document primarily addresses the Deploy and Operate and Monitor stages of the AI lifecycle, focusing on requirements for how companion AI chatbots are made available to users and ongoing operational requirements including monitoring for harmful content and periodic user notifications.

Technical Scope

Terms relating to technical scope that are mentioned or implicitly referenced in the document

• AI Systems
• Task-specific AI

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly addresses AI systems in the form of companion AI chatbots, which are software-based artificial intelligence systems. It does not mention AI models separately, nor does it reference frontier AI, general purpose AI, foundation models, compute thresholds, or open-source models. The focus is specifically on conversational AI chatbots designed for emotional interaction.