California Companion Chatbot Safety Bill (SB 1119)
California, United StatesHigh threat- Introduced
- Passed Senate
- Passed House
- Became Law
Stage 4 of 4: Became Law
Forces chatbot services to age-classify every user or put everyone into a state-defined child mode, tying private conversations to California's growing identity system.
Latest update
Signed by Governor Newsom as Adam's Law and chaptered as Chapter 190, Statutes of 2026
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Take action on this issueWhat it does
SB 1119 requires companion-chatbot operators to prevent defined harms to minors, publish child-safety policies, provide parental controls and disclosures, submit to audits, and restrict specified content and advertising. To decide which rules apply, an operator must determine a user's age through California's Digital Age Assurance Act or apply the child restrictions to every user. Governor Newsom signed the measure as Adam's Law on September 10, 2026 as Chapter 190.
What’s at stake
You cannot impose minor-specific conversation rules without identifying who is a minor. The supposed alternative—treating every user as a child—is designed to be commercially unattractive, pushing services toward device-level age signals. That makes anonymous and pseudonymous use of AI harder and gives the state influence over both who may speak privately with a tool and what that tool may say.
Our take
This is surveillance and speech control packaged as chatbot safety. California first built the operating-system age pipe, then attached social media to it, and now attaches private AI conversations. The choice between checking everyone and restricting everyone is not a privacy safeguard. It is coercion into the state's age-classification system.
Timeline
Signed by Governor Newsom as Adam's Law and chaptered as Chapter 190, Statutes of 2026Latest
Passed the Assembly; Senate concurred 39-0; sent to engrossing and enrolling
Passed the Senate 39-0 and sent to the Assembly
Introduced in the Senate
Sponsors
Sen. Steve Padilla, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan
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