Safeguarding Adolescents From Exploitative BOTs 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: 2025-12-11

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
• False or misleading information
• Overreliance and unsafe use
• Lack of transparency or interpretability

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

• Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation
• Loss of human agency and autonomy

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document primarily addresses risks in Human-Computer Interaction (5.1, 5.2), Discrimination & Toxicity (1.2), Misinformation (3.1), Malicious actors (4.3), and AI System Safety (7.4). It focuses on protecting minors from harmful chatbot interactions through transparency requirements, content policies, and preventing overreliance on AI systems.

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.

• Professional & Technical Services
• 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 provide AI chatbot systems directly to consumers through digital platforms. It does not govern specific industry uses of chatbots but rather regulates the chatbot providers themselves.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a binding Congressional bill with mandatory obligations ('shall', 'may not') and explicit Federal Trade Commission enforcement mechanisms, including penalties under the FTC Act and state attorney general enforcement powers.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: The document is explicitly a Congressional bill as indicated by the opening language 'Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled'.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Developer, AI_Deployer
• Summary: The document explicitly defines and targets 'chatbot provider' as entities that provide AI chatbot systems to consumers, imposing disclosure and policy requirements on these providers.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: The document explicitly designates the Federal Trade Commission as the primary enforcement body with full FTC Act powers, and authorizes state attorneys general to bring civil actions for violations.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: The FTC is designated as the enforcement body which inherently includes monitoring responsibilities. Additionally, HHS through NIH is mandated to conduct a 4-year longitudinal study monitoring chatbot impacts on minors' mental health.

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 chatbot providers at the point of deployment and during ongoing user interactions with minors. It does not substantially cover earlier stages like planning, data collection, or model building.

Technical Scope

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

• AI Systems

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly defines and covers 'artificial intelligence' and 'chatbot' as an AI system. It focuses on conversational AI systems marketed to consumers. There is no mention of frontier AI, general purpose AI, foundation models, compute thresholds, or open-weight models.