Algorithmic Transparency and Choice 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.

• Compromise of privacy
• Loss of human agency and autonomy
• Lack of transparency or interpretability

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

• Pollution of information ecosystem
• AI pursuing its own goals

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document primarily addresses transparency and autonomy risks, with strong focus on lack of transparency (7.4), loss of human agency and autonomy (5.2), information ecosystem pollution through filter bubbles (3.2), and privacy concerns (2.1). Coverage is concentrated in the Human-Computer Interaction, AI System Safety/Transparency, Misinformation, and Privacy domains as they relate to personalized recommendation systems used with minors.

Sector coverage

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

• Information

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

The document primarily governs the Information sector, specifically online platforms including social networks, video sharing services, and other internet applications that use personalized recommendation systems. The regulation explicitly targets public-facing websites and mobile applications that provide forums for user-generated content.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a Congressional Act using mandatory language ('shall') throughout, designating the Federal Trade Commission as the enforcement body with explicit authority to impose penalties under the FTC Act, and preempting conflicting state laws.

Actors

Proposer

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

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Deployer
• Entities: Covered online platforms; providers of covered online platforms; online platforms using personalized recommendation systems
• Summary: The Act explicitly targets 'the provider of a covered online platform' which is defined as 'an online platform that uses a personalized recommendation system' including social networks and video sharing services. These are AI deployers operating recommendation systems.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Federal Trade Commission; Commission
• Summary: The Federal Trade Commission is explicitly designated as the enforcement authority with full powers to enforce violations of this Act using FTC Act procedures and penalties.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Federal Trade Commission
• Summary: While not explicitly stated as a monitoring role, the FTC's enforcement authority implicitly includes monitoring compliance. The FTC would need to monitor platform practices to identify violations and enforce the Act's requirements.

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/Monitor stages of the AI lifecycle. It focuses on operational requirements for already-deployed personalized recommendation systems on online platforms, mandating transparency disclosures, user controls, and default settings. It does not substantially address earlier stages like planning, data collection, model building, or validation.

Technical Scope

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

• AI Systems

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly mentions 'personalized recommendation system' and 'input-transparent algorithm' which are AI systems. It does not explicitly refer to AI models, frontier AI, GPAI, foundation models, generative AI, or compute thresholds. The focus is on recommender systems used by online platforms to curate content for users.