House panel to hold hearing on privacy, kids safety bills  

The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing next week on several technology policy bills, including a newly unveiled comprehensive data privacy bill and kids online safety bills, the committee announced late Tuesday.  

Wednesday’s hearing will include discussions of the American Privacy Rights Act, which was released Sunday by committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).  

The bill would set in place regulations around how companies collect and use Americans’ data, and it would preempt state laws that have been enacted in recent years in lieu of federal guidelines.  

The hearing will also consider discussions of an update to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). House versions of the bipartisan bills, which advanced out of the Senate Commerce Committee in July, were introduced Tuesday led by Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.).

The House version of COPPA 2.0 was co-sponsored by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), and the House version of KOSA was co-sponsored by Reps. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.), Erin Houchin (R-Ind.) and Kim Schrier (D-Wash.).  

COPPA 2.0 would update privacy protections of children online, adding regulations around how data is collected and used by tech companies for users ages 16 and under. It would also ban targeted advertising practices.  

KOSA would add regulations that aim to mitigate concerns about the use of certain tools and features and their impact on children’s mental health.  

Pressure has been mounting for Congress to act over rising concerns about the impact tech platforms have on children. The CEOs of Meta, TikTok, Snap, Discord and X faced questions about their impacts on youth users at a heated Senate committee hearing in January.