California requires age checks and alerts for kids using chatbots

Governor Newsom signed SB 1119, also called Adam's Law, on September 10. It takes effect in July 2027, per the governor's office.

The law applies to any consumer chatbot that could have users under 18 in California, which covers most of them. Operators have to verify ages on a recurring basis and notify a linked parent account when relevant. They also have to show crisis resources to minors who mention self-harm and run a risk assessment on new designs before launch. Independent safety audits go to the attorney general too.

That's five obligations for one compliance team, and age verification will cost the most. No one has a privacy-preserving way to do it yet.

July 2027 sounds far off, but risk assessments and audit infrastructure take time to build. Legal teams will spend months arguing over what regularly verifying age means before anyone writes a line of code. Anything conversational that a teenager could plausibly open needs a compliance plan built well before the deadline.