1. United States
2. Fla.
3. Letter

Vote no on the KIDS Act. The bill's age verification mandate would force every American — not just minors — to hand over government IDs, credit card numbers, or biometric data to third-party companies just to access the internet. That's not child protection. That's a national surveillance infrastructure built on the backs of children as justification. The data breach record here is damning. AU10TIX, used by TikTok and X, left admin credentials exposed for over a year, leaking names, ID numbers, and document images. A breach at Discord's age verification provider exposed government ID photos from up to 2.1 million users. The bill doesn't require privacy-preserving alternatives like zero-knowledge proofs — it just mandates verification and lets platforms default to the cheapest, most invasive option. We already know what that looks like. The EFF and CDT have flagged that the Supreme Court's ruling in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton applies narrowly to sexually explicit content, meaning the KIDS Act's broader social media age gates face a serious First Amendment challenge. This bill trades real civil liberties for the appearance of action. Reject it.