The U.S. Senate is poised to vote on the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act (KOSPA), a legislative package that includes the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0). If passed, this legislation would impose broad restrictions on online speech, raise significant First Amendment concerns, and create complex compliance challenges for businesses aiming to protect young people online.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which has advocated for baseline federal privacy legislation and online protections for children for over a decade, recently joined 15 civil society and industry groups in a letter expressing concerns about KOSA.
CCIA President & CEO Matt Schruers stated: “We support the broadly shared goal of protecting younger users online. But we do not protect children by silencing them; nor do we foster access to online communities through suppression. Not only does KOSPA raise serious First Amendment concerns by silencing speech, it would also create greater privacy risks through forced data collections and untested age-gating technologies.”
