WASHINGTON – Today on the floor, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) discussed the Senate passing two landmark child online protection bills he has cosponsored, the Kids Online Safety Act and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act. Excerpts of Sen. Cornyn’s remarks are below, and video can be found here.  

“Every day, our children see content online about suicide, eating disorders, and drug use, and the statistics on teen suicide and mental health paint an alarming picture for the next generation,” said Sen. Cornyn. “These bills strike the right balance between First Amendment rights and safety, and I’m proud the Senate has finally taken an important step to help keep America’s children safe online.”

Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) led the Kids Online Safety Act and Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) led the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act.

Background:

The Kids Online Safety Act would provide kids and parents with the tools, safeguards, and transparency they need to protect against threats to children’s health and wellbeing online by:

• Requiring social media platforms to provide minors with options to protect their information, disable addictive product features, and opt out of personalized algorithmic recommendations;
• Giving parents new tools to help support their children and providing them a dedicated channel to report any harm to kids to those platforms;
• Creating a duty for online platforms to prevent and mitigate specific dangers to minors in their product designs, including suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual exploitation, and advertisements for certain illegal products;
• Requiring large social media platforms to perform an annual independent audit that assesses the risks to minors and whether the platform is taking meaningful steps to prevent those harms;
• And fostering research regarding harms to the online safety of minors by requiring the National Academies to study the impact of social media on youth.

The Kids Online Safety Act is cosponsored by more 70 Senators and endorsed by more than 250 organizations and associations representing mental health experts, nurses, parents’ groups, young people, consumer advocates, faith groups, tech experts, and other communities, including Common Sense Media, American Psychological Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Compass, Eating Disorders Coalition, Fairplay, Mental Health America, Microsoft, Nintendo of America, Digital Progress Institute, and hundreds of other national and state groups.

In 1998, Congress passed the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which instituted basic privacy protections, including notice and parental consent requirements that protect users under 13 years old. While COPPA took major steps toward safeguarding children’s personal information on the internet, the law is overdue for an update in light of major changes in the online landscape. The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act would stop the data practices fueling today’s youth mental health crisis by:

• Prohibiting internet companies from collecting personal information from users who are 13 to 16 years old without their consent; 
• Banning targeted advertising to children and teens;
• Revising COPPA’s “actual knowledge” standard, covering platforms that are “reasonably likely to be used” by children and protecting users who are “reasonably likely to be” children or minors;
• Creating an “Eraser Button” for parents and kids by requiring companies to permit users to eliminate personal information from a child or teen when technologically feasible;
• Establishing a “Digital Marketing Bill of Rights for Teens” that limits the collection of personal information of teens;
• And establishing a Youth Marketing and Privacy Division at the Federal Trade Commission.

The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act is cosponsored by more than 20 Senators and endorsed by #HalfTheStory, Academy for Eating Disorders, American Academy of Pediatrics, Center for Online Safety, CEating Disorders Coalition for Research, Policy, & Action, EDGE Consulting Partners, Enough Is Enough, Fairplay, IGGY Ventures, LookUp.live, Lynn’s Warriors, Media Education Foundation, Mental Health America, National Association of School Nurses, Parents Who Fight, the National Parent Teacher Association, and others.