House Passes Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act

On June 29, 2026, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act by a bipartisan 267–117 vote. The online safety bill now faces the Senate, where its path remains unclear due to the omission of a "duty of care" provision in the House version.

Background

On March 3, 2026, Representative Brett Guthrie (R-KY) and Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ) introduced the KIDS Act in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The KIDS Act is a legislative package organized into seven titles. Notably, the bill requires covered platforms to maintain and enforce reasonable policies, practices, and procedures that address four types of harms to minors: severe, pervasive, or objectively offensive threats of physical violence; sexual exploitation and abuse; distribution, sale, and use of drugs, tobacco products, gambling, and alcohol; and financial harm caused by deceptive practices.^Footnote1

The House bill omits the "duty of care" provision included in the Senate version of the bill—a major provision that EDUCAUSE has been tracking.^Footnote2 In this context, the "duty of care" provision requires covered platforms to exercise reasonable care in the design and implementation of their platform features to prevent and mitigate reasonably foreseeable harms to minors.

While the Senate version of the bill, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), mandates that covered platforms have a duty of care toward minors using their platforms, the House version explicitly states that the required policies, practices, and procedures described above do not impose a duty of care on covered platforms.^Footnote3 Notably, both bills exclude libraries and higher education institutions from the definition of a covered platform. However, uncertainty remains about whether institutions could be pulled into the requirements of the bill when they connect to or use content from social media platforms on their websites and in their applications.

In addition to the policies and practices required for covered platforms, the House version of the KIDS Act would require covered platforms to enable the highest level of safeguards for minors by default, provide parental tools and teen messaging controls, and undergo independent annual audits. The bill would also require age-verification technology for platforms dominated by sexual material, impose disclosure and crisis-resource obligations on artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots that serve minors, and add parental controls for online video games. Additionally, through a rewrite of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0), the KIDS Act would raise the "child" age threshold to under fourteen, create a new "teen" category for individuals aged fourteen to seventeen, prohibit targeted advertising to children and teens, and require data brokers handling minors' information to register with the Federal Trade Commission.

House Passage and Next Steps

The House fast-tracked the KIDS Act under a suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority. Despite the bipartisan support in the House, the bill faces an uncertain path in the Senate, where it needs sixty votes to bypass a filibuster. The legislation will likely come under scrutiny in the Senate due to the omission of the "duty of care" provision.

EDUCAUSE will continue to monitor the KIDS Act and other online safety and data privacy legislation for developments.

Notes

1. "The term "covered platform" means a platform that is a website, software, application, or electronic service connected to the internet . . . ." For the full definition, see KIDS Act,H.R. 7757, 119th Congress (2026).Jump back to footnote 1 in the text. ↩
2. Bailey Graves, "Senate Reintroduces Kids Online Safety Act," EDUCAUSE Review, July 21, 2025. Jump back to footnote 2 in the text. ↩
3. Kids Online Safety Act, S. 1748, 119th Congress (2025); KIDS Act,, H.R. 7757, 119th Congress (2026).Jump back to footnote 3 in the text. ↩

Bailey Graves is Senior Associate at Ulman Public Policy.