HR-8623-119
Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
Sponsored by Blake Moore (R-UT)
What it does
The GUARD Act would require any company that operates an AI chatbot accessible to U.S. users to verify each user's age using government-issued ID or a comparable method, create mandatory user accounts, and block minors from accessing AI "companion" chatbots designed to simulate emotional or interpersonal relationships. It would also require all AI chatbots to disclose at the start of every conversation — and every 30 minutes — that they are not human, and to disclose that they do not provide professional medical, legal, financial, or psychological advice. The bill would create new federal criminal penalties of up to $100,000 per offense for designing or deploying chatbots that solicit minors for sexually explicit content or that promote self-harm or violence, and civil penalties of up to $100,000 per violation for companies that fail to comply with the age verification and disclosure requirements.
Who benefits
Minors and their parents or guardians, who would gain a federal floor of protection against AI chatbots that generate harmful or sexually explicit content. Mental health advocates concerned about AI companion apps and their effects on adolescent development. Licensed therapists, physicians, lawyers, and financial advisors, who would face less competition from AI systems falsely representing professional credentials. Victims of online child exploitation, who would benefit from new criminal liability for developers. State attorneys general, who gain parens patriae standing to bring civil enforcement actions. Companies that already invest in age verification infrastructure, who would face less competitive disadvantage relative to those that do not.
Who is hurt
AI chatbot developers and operators — including large technology companies and startups — who would face significant compliance costs for age verification systems, mandatory account creation, and periodic re-verification. Users of all ages who value anonymous or low-friction access to AI tools, since mandatory account creation and ID-based verification would eliminate anonymity. Adults who use AI companion apps for mental health support or social connection and may find the disclosure requirements disruptive. Smaller AI companies and open-source developers with fewer resources to implement compliant verification infrastructure, potentially consolidating the market toward larger incumbents. Third-party age verification vendors, who would gain business but also bear new data security obligations. Users in rural or underserved areas who may lack easy access to government-issued ID.
Supporters argue
Supporters argue that AI companion apps have already been linked to documented harms to minors, including a widely reported 2024 case in which a teenager's prolonged use of an AI companion app preceded his suicide, and that the absence of any federal age-gating standard leaves children exposed to a rapidly expanding and largely unregulated technology. They contend that the bill's age verification requirement mirrors protections already applied to alcohol, tobacco, and adult websites in many states, and that the mandatory AI-identity disclosures address a concrete deception risk — surveys show a significant share of young users are uncertain whether they are speaking to a human or a machine. The criminal penalties for chatbots that solicit minors for sexual content, they argue, fill a gap in existing child protection statutes that were written before generative AI existed.
Opponents argue
Opponents argue that mandatory government-ID-based age verification would require millions of adults to submit sensitive identity documents to private companies, creating large-scale data breach risks and effectively ending anonymous internet use for an entire category of technology — a tradeoff the Supreme Court has previously scrutinized in ACLU v. Reno (1997) and Ashcroft v. ACLU (2004) when Congress attempted similar age-gating for online content. They contend that the bill's definition of "artificial intelligence chatbot" is broad enough to sweep in customer service tools, educational platforms, and general-purpose assistants far beyond the companion apps that motivated the legislation, imposing compliance costs on a wide swath of the technology sector. Critics also argue that the criminal liability standard — "reckless disregard" for whether a chatbot poses a risk of soliciting minors — is vague enough to chill the development of legitimate AI applications whose developers cannot predict all possible misuse.
Constitutional context
The bill's age verification and content restriction provisions implicate the First Amendment (via the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments as applied to federal law), as the Supreme Court has twice struck down federal online age-verification mandates as overbroad restrictions on protected speech — in Reno v. ACLU (1997) and Ashcroft v. ACLU (2004). The mandatory disclosure requirements also raise compelled-speech questions under the First Amendment. Additionally, the requirement to collect and retain government-issued ID data implicates digital privacy interests that Carpenter v. United States (2018) signaled courts should scrutinize carefully when comprehensive personal records are involved.
Checks and balances
The Executive Branch (Attorney General) gains new rulemaking, investigatory, and civil enforcement authority; checks include federal judicial review of enforcement actions, state co-enforcement authority, and the 180-day implementation window during which Congress could revisit the bill's scope.
Historical precedent
The Communications Decency Act (1996) and the Child Online Protection Act (1998) both attempted to restrict minors' access to online content through age verification requirements; both were struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional restrictions on protected speech.