Virginia SB 269 (Mental health service providers)

• Authority: Virginia
• Parent authority: State governments
• Jurisdiction: United States
• Collections: U.S. state and local documents
• Most recent activity: Proposed
• Most recent activity date: 2026-03-02

Risk subdomain coverage

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

• 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
• Loss of human agency and autonomy
• AI possessing dangerous capabilities
• Lack of capability or robustness
• Lack of transparency or interpretability

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document primarily addresses human-computer interaction risks (5.1, 5.2), privacy concerns (2.1), and AI system safety/limitations (7.2, 7.3, 7.4). The focus is on preventing overreliance on AI in mental health contexts, maintaining human oversight, protecting patient autonomy, and ensuring transparency through disclosure requirements.

Sector coverage

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

• Health Care & Social Assistance

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

This document exclusively governs the Health Care and Social Assistance sector, specifically regulating mental health service providers' use of AI systems in therapeutic and counseling contexts. No other sectors are mentioned or regulated.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a binding state statute enacted by the Virginia General Assembly with mandatory obligations, civil penalties up to $10,000 for violations, and enforcement by the Department of Health Professions.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: General Assembly of Virginia
• Summary: The document begins with legislative enactment language indicating the General Assembly of Virginia as the proposing body for this statute.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Deployer
• Entities: Mental health service providers
• Summary: The statute explicitly regulates mental health service providers who use AI systems in their practice, defining their obligations and restrictions throughout the document.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Department of Health Professions
• Summary: The Department of Health Professions is explicitly named as the entity responsible for collecting civil penalties for violations of this statute.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Department of Health Professions
• Summary: While not explicitly stated, the Department of Health Professions' role in enforcement strongly implies monitoring responsibilities, as enforcement requires detection and investigation of violations.

AI Lifecycle Stages

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

• Collect and Process Data
• Verify and Validate
• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document primarily addresses the Deploy and Operate and Monitor stages of the AI lifecycle, focusing on how mental health service providers deploy and use AI systems in clinical practice. It establishes operational requirements, oversight mechanisms, and restrictions on AI system capabilities during deployment and ongoing use.

Technical Scope

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

• AI Models
• AI Systems
• General Purpose AI

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly defines and regulates 'artificial intelligence systems' broadly as machine learning-based systems that generate outputs. It does not mention frontier AI, general purpose AI, foundation models, generative AI, predictive AI, compute thresholds, or open-weight models. The focus is on AI systems used in mental health service delivery regardless of their specific technical architecture.