N.Y. Seeks Comment on Kids' Online Safety Laws

New York state on Thursday started the process to implement two kids’ online safety laws. Attorney General Letitia James (D) released an Advanced NPRM for each. The bills are the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (Safe) for Kids Act and the Child Data Protection Act. While not part of the formal rulemaking process under the state’s administrative procedures act, the ANPRMs let the state seek information before proposing rules, the AG office said. Comments are due Sept. 30. “New Yorkers are looking to this office to protect children on social media apps and online, and the rules we are drafting will do precisely that,” James said. “By offering everyone, supporters and opponents of the recently signed legislation, the opportunity to submit comments and information, my office will ensure that we can better address concerns and priorities.” The Safe Act requires obtaining parental consent when using algorithms to sort feeds for minors, while the kids’ privacy bill bans websites from collecting and sharing minors’ personal data without informed consent. In the Safe Act ANPRM, the AG office asked about how it should identify commercially reasonable and technically feasible age-verification methods, how it should implement a parental consent mechanism and how to determine whether a social media platform is addictive. In the kids’ privacy bill ANPRM, the AG office asked about what factors are relevant to determining that a website is primarily directed at minors, young teenagers and older teens. Among many other questions, the office asked if there should be any exceptions to the definition of a data “sale” and how rules should account for “anonymized or deidentified data that could potentially still be re-linked to a specific individual.” Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) applauded the process to implement the bills she signed in June (see 2406200069). Citing the U.S. Senate's passage of two children’s internet safety bills Tuesday (see 2407300042), Hochul said, “Our efforts in New York are accelerating a national conversation on youth mental health and social media.”