1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

I urge you to oppose the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), the Kids Online Safety Modernization Act (KOSMA), the SCREEN Act, the Parents Over Platforms Act, and the App Store Accountability Act. These bills share a dangerous common thread: they pressure companies to verify everyone's age and identity, forcing widespread collection and storage of sensitive personal information including identification documents and biometric data. This approach is fundamentally at odds with protecting children from the harms they already face. Child identity fraud is a surging crisis. One in 50 children suffers identity fraud, and one in 45 experiences data breaches. When child identity theft occurs, families lose over $1,000 per case on average, and the damage takes longer to resolve than adult identity fraud. Most troubling, the majority of child identity fraud victims know their perpetrator, meaning the sensitive data these bills mandate could be weaponized by family members, acquaintances, or anyone who gains access to these expanded databases. The current reality is that children are heavily present on social media, yet parents often cannot or do not closely monitor their online activities. Cyberbullying frequently goes undetected, and 94 percent of families only obtain identity protection services after a breach has already occurred. Rather than addressing these documented harms through data minimization and stronger security requirements, these bills expand the attack surface by mandating collection of precisely the information identity thieves seek. Every additional database containing identification documents and biometric data creates another target for breaches and another opportunity for fraud. These bills prioritize content restriction and access control over protecting families from the financial and privacy harms they are experiencing right now. I ask you to oppose KOSA, KOSMA, the SCREEN Act, Parents Over Platforms, and the App Store Accountability Act, and instead support legislation that minimizes data collection, strengthens security standards, and addresses the documented rise in child identity fraud.