United States of America: Passed Social Media Regulation Amendments (SB 194) including data protection regulation

On 21 February 2024, the Social Media Regulation Amendments Bill (SB 194) was passed by the Senate. The Bill aims to introduce age verification mechanisms for minors and mandates that personal information collected within the age verification mechanisms be kept separately and not used for other purposes. Furthermore, the Bill mandates that social media companies set the default account settings of minors to have the highest privacy protections and restricts the collection and sale of data from minors. The Bill also defines that reasonable security measures must be implemented and maintained in order to protect the confidentiality, security and integrity of a minor's personal data.