NEW YORK, N.Y.—Yesterday, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Kathy Hochul released final rules implementing the SAFE for Kids Act, the state’s 2024 law restricting algorithmic feeds and nighttime notifications for users under 18. The rules take effect January 25, 2027.
“New York doesn’t need to replace parents,” said Amy Bos, Vice President of Government Affairs at NetChoice.
“Similar laws targeting algorithms and content moderation in the name of keeping kids ‘safe’ have already been overturned or are being challenged in other states, because they’re categorically unconstitutional. Instead, the state should back law enforcement with the resources to go after the people actually harming children.”
The final rules raise several concerns:
- An unmeasurable threshold: Coverage turns on when users hit the threshold of 20% of their time spent on a platform’s “addictive” feeds — a figure no platform can measure in advance, leaving the Attorney General wide discretion to decide after the fact who violated the law.
- A real compliance cost: Covered platforms must run annual accuracy testing on their age assurance method and retain the results for a minimum of ten years, a standing burden that lands hardest on smaller services.
- The vendors grade their own mandate: The Attorney General’s release quotes the Age Verification Providers Association, the Age Check Certification Scheme, and Yoti praising the rules as workable. Every one of them profits from the compliance services these rules now require, whether or not they are truly safe and workable.
- A privacy risk for everyone, not just kids: To screen out minors, every user must first hand over sensitive identifying information. That data has to be stored somewhere, creating a new target for breaches and a new tool for tracking people’s online activity.
- A family decision, not a state one: Parents already have the tools to manage what their kids see online. NetChoice has won injunctions against similar laws in California and Arkansas.
NetChoice urges New York to instead invest in prosecuting child sexual abuse material, implement digital safety education in schools, and create parent education campaigns, all solutions that are a part of NetChoice’s Digital Safety Shield for America, a constitutional alternative to rules like these.
Read the final SAFE for Kids Act rules here.
Read NetChoice’s previous statement on the law’s signing here.
Please contact press@netchoice.org with inquiries.