A Surveillance Mandate Disguised As Child Safety: Why the GUARD Act Won't Keep Us Safe

A new bill sponsored by Sen. Hawley (D-MO), Sen. Blumenthal (D-CT), Sen. Britt (R-AL), Sen. Warner (D-VA), and Sen. Murphy (D-CT) would require AI chatbots to verify all users’ ages, prohibit minors from using AI tools, and implement steep criminal penalties for chatbots that promote or solicit certain harms. That might sound reasonable at first, but behind those talking points lies a sprawling surveillance and censorship regime that would reshape how people of all ages use the internet.

The GUARD Act may look like a child-safety bill, but in practice it’s an age-gating mandate that could be imposed on nearly every public-facing AI chatbot.

The GUARD Act may look like a child-safety bill, but in practice it’s an age-gating mandate that could be imposed on nearly every public-facing AI chatbot—from customer-service bots to search-engine assistants. The GUARD Act could force countless AI companies to collect sensitive identity data, chill online speech, and block teens from using the digital tools that they rely on every day.

EFF has warned for years that age-verification laws endanger free expression, privacy, and competition. There are legitimate concerns about transparency and accountability in AI, but the GUARD Act’s sweeping mandates are not the solution.

Young People's Access to Legitimate AI Tools Could Be Cut Off Entirely. 

The GUARD Act doesn’t give parents a choice—it simply blocks minors from AI companions altogether. If a chat system’s age-verification process determines that a user is under 18, that user must then be locked out completely. The GUARD Act contains no parental consent mechanism, no appeal process for errors in age estimation, and no flexibility for any other context.

The bill’s definition of an AI “companion” is ambiguous enough that it could easily be interpreted to extend beyond general-use LLMs like ChatGPT, causing overcautious companies to block young people from other kinds of AI services too. In practice, this means that under the GUARD Act, teenagers may not be able to use chatbots to get help with homework, seek customer service assistance for a product they bought, or even ask a search engine a question. It could also cut off all young people’s access to educational and creative tools that have quickly become a part of everyday learning and life online.

The GUARD Act’s sponsors claim these rules will keep our children safe, but that’s not true.

By treating all young people—whether seven or seventeen—the same, the GUARD Act threatens their ability to explore their identities, get answers to questions free from shame or stigma, and gradually develop a sense of autonomy as they mature into adults. Denying teens’ access to online spaces doesn’t make them safer, it just keeps them uninformed and unprepared for adult life.  

The GUARD Act’s sponsors claim these rules will keep our children safe, but that’s not true. Instead, it will undermine both safety and autonomy by replacing parental guidance with government mandates and building mass surveillance infrastructure instead of privacy controls.

All Age Verification Systems Are Dangerous. This Is No Different. 

Teens aren’t the only ones who lose out under the GUARD Act. The bill would require platforms to confirm the ages of all users—young and old—before allowing them to speak, learn, or engage with their AI tools.

Under the GUARD Act, platforms can’t rely on a simple “I’m over 18” checkbox or self-attested birthdate. Instead, they must build or buy a “commercially reasonable” age-verification system that collects identifying information (like a government ID, credit record, or biometric data) from every user before granting them access to the AI service. Though the GUARD Act does contain some data minimization language, its mandate to periodically re-verify users means that platforms must either retain or re-collect that sensitive user data as needed. Both of those options come with major privacy risks.  

EFF has long documented the dangers of age-verification systems:

• They create attractive targets for hackers. Third-party services that collect users’ sensitive ID and biometric data for the purpose of age verification have been repeatedly breached, exposing millions to identity theft and other harms.
• They implement mass surveillance syst