The Problem with the 2026 KIDS Act

By Z. E. Kendall

U.S. House of Representatives member Brett Guthrie sponsored the KIDS Act (HR 7757), and the KIDS Act has recently passed the U.S. House of Representatives.

The KIDS Act is an omnibus bill that applies a litany of regulations to online social media use. Some of those regulations support parental rights, such as controls over child-accounts for online videogames, and a part of the KIDS Act is legislation that mirrors part of what the Family Foundation wanted to get passed in Kentucky. That part deals with restrictions on the ability of social media companies to advertise and conduct research for advertising on minors.

However, the main problem with the KIDS Act legislation is the section on verifying someone’s age. That is Section 103. That section says that social media platforms that must abide by the legislation must “use a technology verification measure” beyond the user “confirming that the user is not a minor” and that the social media company must “take reasonable measures to address circumvention of technology verification measures.”

This wording is way too vague and broad. The legislation does not specify which technology measure. It could end up being an A.I. assessment of your face to determine your age. It could end up being driver’s licenses and other state-issued I.D., though the legislation does not require that. It could end up being an A.I. guessing your age based on your search history. It could be a combination of all three of those methods. It could even be submitting your Social Security number to verify your age.

Depending on what gets implemented, we could end up with several things happening:

1. Some elderly social media users being locked out of their accounts because they are not skilled at using age verification recognition technology (including some of our supporters)

2. The A.I. failing to recognize that the image of a face presented to it for age verification is not the face of the user of the social media account

3. People being able to trick A.I. into believing that a legitimate government I.D. has been presented which has not been presented

4. This legislation could also eliminate anonymity on social media platforms if those social media companies decide to require government-issued I.D. in order for all of its users to pass or fail its age-verification. If the government ever turns against freedom of speech like Britain’s government has done, then it could pressure social media companies or third-parties to give them that info for an arrest and prosecution when you make a comment that someone in the government doesn’t like.

U.S. Representative Tim Burchett from Tennessee says that he opposed the KIDS Act because “Big Tech... eliminated themselves from any liability.¹” But how? The legislation allows social media companies to use third-parties to verify the age of the users of the social media sites.

This means that third-party companies could get access to the personal data of users of that social media site, at least for a while. This would give hackers another target that they can attack in order to get personal data from social media users, and these third-party companies could be easier targets to hit. This could eventually lead to criminals obtaining images of faces (even the faces of children who fail an A.I. facial recognition test), names with addresses, and even maybe Social Security numbers of people who use social media.

If this happens, the social media companies won’t be held liable, because they’re not the ones that will have been hacked. They also won’t be held liable if something goes wrong due to an A.I. making a mistake in the age verification process, because third-party companies will own those A.I.

The legislation isn’t all bad. For example, it does have a section dedicated to opposing the prevalence of pornography on social media sites that many people might like.

But the risky sections in the legislation ought to be fixed or nixed.

We don’t have to do age verification in order to pass some legislation to help to protect children and teens online. Last year in Kentucky, for example, we passed Senate Bill 73 and Senate Bill 169 in order to oppose the sexual blackmail of children online. There was no age verification rule in those laws.

If you would like to give your opinion about the KIDS Act, feel free to contact your U.S. Senator’s office at the U.S. Capitol Switchboard number (202)224-3121.

If you live in Kentucky, feel free to call Mitch McConnell’s office number at (202) 224-2541 and Rand Paul’s office number at (270)782-8303.

Notes:

1Burchett, Tim. “Big Tech Wrote the Bill for Online Protection for Children So I Voted No.” 29 June. 2026. https://x.com/timburchett/status/2071741493757219293. Accessed 29 June 2026. Web.