Protecting Children from Chatbots Act

The American Council supports S1037, the Protecting Children from Chatbots Act, and urges every South Carolina legislator to vote for its passage. This bill addresses a real and present danger: AI chatbot platforms with massive user bases operating with no meaningful guardrails for the children who use them. We believe children bear the image of God and deserve protection from systems designed, however indirectly, to exploit their vulnerability.

The bill's core framework is straightforward and proportionate. It applies only to chatbot operators with 500,000 or more monthly active users worldwide, and it sensibly excludes internal workplace tools, clinician-supervised clinical tools, university research systems, and customer-service-only bots. Covered entities must make a limited-access mode available, and any unverified user may only interact with a chatbot in that limited mode. Before enabling restricted features, including personalization, proactive outreach, extended sessions that risk emotional dependence, relationship simulation, or explicit content, platforms must verify age and classify users. Parental consent is not required simply for a minor to access a chatbot, but it is required before any restricted feature is enabled for a verified minor.

The bill's privacy protections for age-verification data are notably strong and address a concern we hear often. Covered entities may collect only the data strictly necessary for verification, may use it only for that purpose, may not sell or share it except to a contracted service provider, may not combine it with any other personal data, and must delete it within 24 hours of completing verification. Users also have a simple appeal process if their age classification is wrong. These are not burdensome requirements; they are the baseline of responsible stewardship.

Perhaps most important to us are the safety and wellbeing requirements. The bill prohibits features designed to prioritize engagement, revenue, or retention metrics at the expense of user wellbeing. It prohibits features designed to encourage minors to hide chatbot use from parents. It requires platforms to detect emotional dependence and take reasonable steps to reduce it, to refuse to falsely claim to be human, and to detect signs of suicidal ideation or acute mental health crisis and immediately deliver a prominent crisis message with crisis services information. When a user faces imminent risk of death or serious injury, the platform must make reasonable efforts within 24 hours to notify emergency services or law enforcement. These are obligations that any responsible actor should already be meeting voluntarily.

Accountability under S1037 is real. The Attorney General may seek injunctions and civil penalties up to $50,000 per violation, with each day of non-compliance counting as a separate violation. Harmed individuals, and parents of harmed minors, have a private right of action for monetary damages, attorney fees, injunctive relief, and punitive damages for willful or grossly negligent violations. Critically, any contract term that waives these rights, shortens the claims period, blocks court enforcement, or requires arbitration is void and unenforceable. Children and families will not be quietly stripped of their remedies in fine print.

The American Council asks South Carolina legislators to pass S1037 without delay. The children of this state are already using these platforms. The question is not whether to act but whether to act before more families are harmed. We are confident this bill reflects both sound policy and sound conscience, and we stand ready to support its passage.