California Companion Chatbots: Children's Safety Act (SB 1119)

Properties

jurisdiction: US, California
level: state
domain: safety
status: proposed
scope: Would add a new chapter to the Business and Professions Code imposing child-specific safety duties on operators of companion chatbots accessible in California, on top of the general companion-chatbot framework already enacted in SB 243.
obligations: As confirmed against the August 28, 2026 amended print: before July 1, 2027 (and before deploying a substantially modified chatbot), operators must perform and document a comprehensive risk assessment of child safety risks; operators must verify user age or rely on a state age-determination system; for minors, operators must preserve, in a usable and exportable form, any record of a conversation between a child user and the companion chatbot for as long as the companion chatbot is deployed plus 10 years (there is no ephemeral-mode or automatic-deletion duty); operators must also maintain crisis-response protocols with clear referral to external crisis resources, restrict push notifications during school/sleep hours, limit continuous sessions to one hour and daily use to two hours, and prohibit custom system-prompt instructions targeting children; chatbots may not encourage self-harm, diagnose health conditions, generate sexual material, claim sentience, or solicit purchases from minors.
penalties: Per the same pre-amendment print: civil penalties of $5,000 per affected child for each negligent violation and $15,000 per affected child for each intentional violation, plus punitive damages; private right of action for an affected child or a parent/guardian on the child's behalf.
appliesTo: operators of companion chatbots accessible to California users, specifically toward users who are minors
officialUrl: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB1119
notes: Passed the Senate 39-0 on May 19, 2026. Cleared the Assembly Appropriations Committee suspense file and was ordered to third reading on August 13, 2026, then read a third time WITH AMENDMENTS on August 17, 2026 and again on August 28, 2026. UPDATE (re-verified 2026-08-31 directly against the August 28, 2026 amended print at leginfo.legislature.ca.gov billTextClient for bill_id 202520260SB1119): the $5,000 negligent / $15,000 intentional per-affected-child civil penalty figures are confirmed unchanged, and the one-hour continuous-session / two-hour daily-use limits for minors are confirmed unchanged. The prior obligations text's claim of a 48-hour ephemeral-deletion default was NOT supported by this print and has been corrected: the bill instead requires operators to preserve, in a usable and exportable form, any conversation record between a child user and the companion chatbot for as long as the companion chatbot is deployed plus 10 years. UPDATE (re-verified 2026-09-07 against leginfo.legislature.ca.gov billStatusClient for bill_id 202520260SB1119): the bill has since passed the Assembly floor and returned to the Senate for concurrence. Per the bill's own status history: 08/31/26 'Read third time. Passed. Ordered to the Senate.' (Assembly floor passage, following unanimous consent to take the bill up without reference to file), and the same day, 08/31/26 'Assembly amendments concurred in. (Ayes 39. Noes 0.) Ordered to engrossing and enrolling.' (Senate concurrence). SB 1119 has therefore now cleared the full Legislature. This check's fetch reported no 'Enrolled,' 'To Governor,' 'Approved,' or 'Chaptered' date yet populated on the bill's status page, so status remains 'proposed' per this dataset's convention for bills that have passed both chambers but await gubernatorial action; given SB 813 and SB 903 (same house, same week) were enrolled within 1-4 days of their own concurrence votes, SB 1119's enrollment likely follows within days and should be the first thing the next run checks. Companion bill AB 2023 covers similar ground in the Assembly; only the further-advanced SB 1119 is tracked here to avoid a near-duplicate entry. Distinct from the already-tracked ca-sb243 (California's already-enacted, more general companion-chatbot law) and from co-hb26-1263/wa-hb2225/hi-sb3001-ai-disclosure-safety-act (other states' companion-chatbot laws): SB 1119 is child-specific and adds session-limit, data-retention, and age-verification duties none of those laws impose.

Properties

jurisdiction

US, California

level

state

domain

safety

status

proposed

scope

Would add a new chapter to the Business and Professions Code imposing child-specific safety duties on operators of companion chatbots accessible in California, on top of the general companion-chatbot framework already enacted in SB 243.

obligations

As confirmed against the August 28, 2026 amended print: before July 1, 2027 (and before deploying a substantially modified chatbot), operators must perform and document a comprehensive risk assessment of child safety risks; operators must verify user age or rely on a state age-determination system; for minors, operators must preserve, in a usable and exportable form, any record of a conversation between a child user and the companion chatbot for as long as the companion chatbot is deployed plus 10 years (there is no ephemeral-mode or automatic-deletion duty); operators must also maintain crisis-response protocols with clear referral to external crisis resources, restrict push notifications during school/sleep hours, limit continuous sessions to one hour and daily use to two hours, and prohibit custom system-prompt instructions targeting children; chatbots may not encourage self-harm, diagnose health conditions, generate sexual material, claim sentience, or solicit purchases from minors.

penalties

Per the same pre-amendment print: civil penalties of $5,000 per affected child for each negligent violation and $15,000 per affected child for each intentional violation, plus punitive damages; private right of action for an affected child or a parent/guardian on the child's behalf.

appliesTo

operators of companion chatbots accessible to California users, specifically toward users who are minors

officialUrl

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB1119

notes

Passed the Senate 39-0 on May 19, 2026. Cleared the Assembly Appropriations Committee suspense file and was ordered to third reading on August 13, 2026, then read a third time WITH AMENDMENTS on August 17, 2026 and again on August 28, 2026. UPDATE (re-verified 2026-08-31 directly against the August 28, 2026 amended print at leginfo.legislature.ca.gov billTextClient for bill_id 202520260SB1119): the $5,000 negligent / $15,000 intentional per-affected-child civil penalty figures are confirmed unchanged, and the one-hour continuous-session / two-hour daily-use limits for minors are confirmed unchanged. The prior obligations text's claim of a 48-hour ephemeral-deletion default was NOT supported by this print and has been corrected: the bill instead requires operators to preserve, in a usable and exportable form, any conversation record between a child user and the companion chatbot for as long as the companion chatbot is deployed plus 10 years. UPDATE (re-verified 2026-09-07 against leginfo.legislature.ca.gov billStatusClient for bill_id 202520260SB1119): the bill has since passed the Assembly floor and returned to the Senate for concurrence. Per the bill's own status history: 08/31/26 'Read third time. Passed. Ordered to the Senate.' (Assembly floor passage, following unanimous consent to take the bill up without reference to file), and the same day, 08/31/26 'Assembly amendments concurred in. (Ayes 39. Noes 0.) Ordered to engrossing and enrolling.' (Senate concurrence). SB 1119 has therefore now cleared the full Legislature. This check's fetch reported no 'Enrolled,' 'To Governor,' 'Approved,' or 'Chaptered' date yet populated on the bill's status page, so status remains 'proposed' per this dataset's convention for bills that have passed both chambers but await gubernatorial action; given SB 813 and SB 903 (same house, same week) were enrolled within 1-4 days of their own concurrence votes, SB 1119's enrollment likely follows within days and should be the first thing the next run checks. Companion bill AB 2023 covers similar ground in the Assembly; only the further-advanced SB 1119 is tracked here to avoid a near-duplicate entry. Distinct from the already-tracked ca-sb243 (California's already-enacted, more general companion-chatbot law) and from co-hb26-1263/wa-hb2225/hi-sb3001-ai-disclosure-safety-act (other states' companion-chatbot laws): SB 1119 is child-specific and adds session-limit, data-retention, and age-verification duties none of those laws impose.