"Holds Big Tech Accountable": The KIDS Act Langworthy Hailed Had Its Core Accountability Provision Stripped — and Civil-Liberties Groups Say It Weakens Privacy

Consumer Protection / Privacy Source: Facebook Post MISSING CONTEXT

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Why This Matters

Langworthy, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee (which advanced the bill), voted for and celebrated House passage of the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act (H.R. 7757), framing it as holding “Big Tech accountable” and strengthening “privacy protections for children.” The bill did pass with bipartisan support. But the version the House passed had its central accountability mechanism removed, and the privacy and digital-rights groups closest to the issue argue it does the opposite of what the post claims. Those omissions change the meaning.

Statement

Source: Statement on KIDS Act passage, June 30, 2026 (langworthy.house.gov)

“Last night, the House passed the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act with strong bipartisan support. As a father of two, I know parents — not Big Tech — should be in the driver’s seat when it comes to protecting our kids online. … This bill gives parents more control, strengthens privacy protections for children, updates outdated online safety laws, and holds Big Tech accountable for putting profits ahead of our kids’ well-being.”

The Facts

ClaimVerdictDetail
The House passed the KIDS Act (H.R. 7757)TRUEPassed June 29, 2026, 267–117 (Roll Call 228); Langworthy voted Yea
“Strong bipartisan support”TRUEA KOSA + COPPA 2.0 package negotiated by E&C Chair Guthrie (R) and Ranking Member Pallone (D)
“Holds Big Tech accountable”MISSING CONTEXTThe House version dropped KOSA’s “duty of care” — the core requirement that platforms exercise reasonable care to prevent harms to minors
“Strengthens privacy protections”CONTESTEDEFF and other digital-rights groups say the bill undermines privacy: it pushes age verification for all users (not just children), government-directed moderation, and new rules on private/encrypted messaging

Context

  • The accountability piece was scaled back. The version the House passed removed KOSA’s design-feature “duty of care” — the requirement that platforms exercise reasonable care to prevent harms to minors — and replaced it with a narrower “reasonable policies, practices, and procedures” standard tied to an enumerated harms list that omits several mental-health harms present in the Senate text. EFF describes the change as removing the “infamous ‘duty of care’ provision.” Either way, calling the result a measure that “holds Big Tech accountable” omits that its most direct accountability tool was cut back.
  • The groups closest to the issue oppose it. The Electronic Frontier Foundation warned that provisions “buried inside the KIDS Act” would “push online services to verify all users’ ages, require government-directed moderation policies for online speech, and even create new rules about private and encrypted communications” — at the expense of “privacy, free expression, and the ability of people of all ages to use the internet without revealing sensitive data.” The ACLU said the KIDS Act “would threaten free speech for people of all ages and it would put our data at risk.” A post that markets the bill as strengthening privacy omits that age verification requires more disclosure of sensitive data, which is the privacy concern.
  • It faces a Senate fight. The House removed provisions some senators considered essential, so the bill is not law; passage is one chamber.
  • The privacy-protection framing sits against his own record. Langworthy is a cosponsor of the SECURE Data Act (H.R. 8413), a federal bill that would preempt stronger state privacy laws — including the New York Privacy Act the State Senate passed. Claiming to “strengthen privacy protections” while backing federal preemption of stronger state protections is in tension. See the related entry.

In plain language: the bipartisan-passage claim is accurate. But the post advertises accountability the final bill scaled back, and privacy protection that the leading privacy groups say the bill erodes through universal age verification.

What “Age Verification” Actually Collects — and Why It Matters

The privacy debate over this bill turns on a detail the word “verification” hides: checking someone’s age online is not a simple yes-or-no question — it requires collecting something from the user. Understanding that collection (what privacy researchers call data extraction) is the key to understanding why digital-rights groups across the spectrum object.

How an age check actually works. A website cannot confirm your age by asking. In practice it routes you to a third-party verification vendor that either (a) scans a government ID you upload, or (b) estimates your age from a biometric face scan (“facial age estimation”). Either way, proving you are an adult means handing a private company a driver’s-license image or a scan of your face.

Where that data goes. Once collected, that ID image or facial-geometry data lives in commercial systems governed by company terms of service — not by the stronger public-law protections that cover, for example, federal records. The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, warns that online age-verification “could create more problems than it solves” and that requiring it “creates a trove of attractive data for hackers that could put broader information about users, particularly young users, at risk,” and the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes the mandates force users “to reveal sensitive data” to use the internet. These are not partisan objections; they are about the mechanics of who holds your data after the check.

What is at stake: the open internet. The ability to read, search, and speak online without first identifying yourself is what makes the internet usable for whistleblowers, domestic-violence survivors, people researching a health diagnosis or addiction, and ordinary users who simply value privacy. Age-verification mandates push toward an internet where routine access is gated behind an ID or a face scan.

Why this connects to his other vote. The bill that would govern what happens to all this newly extracted data — the SECURE Data Act (H.R. 8413), which Langworthy cosponsors — contains no private right of action (Section 12: enforcement only by the FTC and state attorneys general). A person whose ID or biometric data is misused could not sue the company directly. Its “relates to” preemption clause (Section 15) would also override stronger state privacy protections. So the same record that incentivizes more collection of sensitive data also backs removing an individual’s ability to sue over its misuse.

In plain language: “age verification” sounds like a yes/no gate, but it works by extracting sensitive ID or biometric data into private systems — and the companion bill he cosponsors would remove your ability to sue if that data is misused. That is why “strengthens privacy protections” omits the other half of the ledger.

Questions This Raises

  1. If the bill “holds Big Tech accountable,” why did the House remove the “duty of care” provision that was the core accountability mechanism?
  2. How does mandatory age verification for all users “strengthen privacy protections,” given it requires more users to disclose sensitive identifying data?
  3. How does support for this bill square with cosponsoring the SECURE Data Act, which would preempt stronger state privacy laws?

Sources

Note: This entry documents publicly available information and the public positions of named organizations. The quote above is from the official statement on langworthy.house.gov, which opens “Last night, the House passed…”; the version posted to his Facebook page the night of the vote opens “Tonight, the House passed…” and is otherwise identical. It does not allege wrongdoing; it documents what the post claims and the context it omits. H.R. 7757 was introduced as the “Promoting a Safe Internet for Minors Act”; “Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act” / “KIDS Act” are short titles in the as-passed text. Langworthy’s role is confirmed: a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee who voted Yea (Roll Call 228). He is not a sponsor or cosponsor of H.R. 7757 (sponsor: Rep. Guthrie; sole cosponsor: Rep. Pallone) — this entry does not characterize him as one.

Last updated: June 30, 2026