ALBANY – Gov. Kathy Hochul and lawmakers want to further beef up privacy protections for kids online, as the state legislature is set to return to Albany this week.
Hochul said Monday she wants to boost parents’ control over their children’s’ online activity by expanding age verification requirements and making it harder for strangers to directly message kids.
“Life is hard enough later on down the road. Let’s let you embrace the freedom, the joy, and the wonder of learning and understanding relationships and the power of the teacher to have an effect on you,” Hochul told students at her former high school in Hamburg, NY.
Hochul will officially make the proposals part of her State of the State address on Jan. 13 as she unveils her 2026 agenda priorities.
The proposals, based on legislation from state Sen. Andrew Gounardes (D-Brooklyn) and Assemblywoman Nily Rozic (D-Queens), follows through on efforts in Albany to reign in the roles that big tech and social media play in young New Yorkers’ lives.
Last year, Hochul implemented a statewide ban on kids having phones in school and signed a piece of legislation from Rozic and Gounardes that required social media companies to display health warning labels on their products.
New York in 2024 also implemented legislation barring social media companies from pushing “addictive” algorithms for their products and profiting off data from users under 18-years-old.
The proposal being pushed by Hochul this year would expand age verification requirements to include gaming platforms, require parent approval for kids under 13 to accept messages and make new connections with strangers, disable AI chatbot features for kids and require sites and apps to implement parental controls over financial transactions.
“We’re putting the onus on social media companies,” Hochul told reporters.
“They took no action and now the states have to take this into our own hands because Washington is not leading either,” Hochul added.
The initiative is likely to receive support from the state legislature.
“It’s a grim reality of the modern internet: the online platforms where our kids spend so much time are failing to protect them from predators,” Gounardes wrote in a statement.
“From toys to food to cars, we regulate all sorts of products to keep children safe. There’s no reason platforms like Roblox should be different,” he said, referring to the online gaming site.
