Sen Markey Introduces Legislation to Protect Children from Privacy and Safety Risks Posed by AI Chatbots

Sen Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced the Youth AI Privacy Act, legislation that would require artificial intelligence companies to implement privacy safeguards in their AI chatbots. In 2025, approximately two-thirds of teenagers reported using AI chatbots, and roughly a quarter reported using them daily. In a couple of tragic cases, a teenager died by suicide after encouragement or advice from an AI chatbot. The Youth AI Privacy Act would establish:

• Safe Design Features
  • Disclosure Requirements: AI chatbots must provide clear, repeated notices to minors that the AI chatbot is not a human.
  • Memory Restrictions: AI chatbots may only use recently collected data in personalizing responses to a minor. AI chatbots may not use any other data in delivering a response to the minor.
  • Addictive Features Limitations: AI chatbots cannot include any features that encourage minors’ usage of, or time spent on, the AI chatbot, such as push alerts.
• Privacy Safeguards
  • Advertising Ban: AI chatbots cannot display advertisements to minors.
  • Prohibition on Training Models on Minors’ Personal Data: AI chatbot companies cannot use minors’ personal data to train an AI chatbot.
  • Profiling: AI chatbots cannot use minors’ personal data to profile a user.
  • Prohibition on Repurposing Minors’ Inputs: Companies cannot use minors’ AI chatbot inputs for any reason except to provide an output to the minor or to address safety issues in the AI chatbot.
• Enforcement: The Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys general, and private plaintiffs are authorized to enforce the legislation.