Online Safety Act: Pritzker Backs Illinois Age Checks to Protect Children

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday applauded a new state measure approved this month that compels social media platforms to confirm user ages, a step intended to discourage adults who prey on kids online and to keep minors safer on popular apps.

The Democrat said he intends to sign the Children’s Online Social Media Safety Act into law, describing it as a way to reduce harm to children—ranging from mental health strain to financial hits families can face.

Protect Children Online: Verification and Controls

The proposal includes several requirements aimed at minors’ accounts and visibility.

• Age screening for account holders.
• Added safeguards for users under 18.
• Prohibition on showing minors’ profiles or posts to unrelated adults without explicit permission.

Age verification can reduce opportunistic contact with minors, but it works best when paired with limits on discovery, messaging, and data use rather than treated as a single fix.

The measure does not ban any specific app, including Snapchat, for users under 16 in Illinois; instead, it focuses on age checks and limits on how minors can be surfaced to adults.

Pritzker described several priorities behind the plan.

• Tools for parents to limit children’s online access, such as device-level screen-time limits, app download approvals, content filters, and controls that restrict who can contact a child.
• Prevention of exploitation of children, including efforts to reduce unwanted contact from adults and other predatory behavior.
• Protection against financial abuse, including scams that pressure minors or families into sending money or sharing sensitive information.

He delivered the remarks Tuesday in Chicago at an event hosted by Punchbowl News, cautioning that predators are a real threat.

The urgency is clear as scams have multiplied in recent years across major networks such as Facebook.

Fraud on Social Platforms: What the Federal Trade Commission Report Shows

In an April update, the Federal Trade Commission estimated that consumers lost $2.1 billion in 2025 to schemes that began on social media. The agency said reports pointed to Facebook as the source of more losses than any other platform.

Although Facebook’s user base includes many older adults, the Federal Trade Commission noted that younger people are not spared; in fact, every age group has been affected. The company says it has introduced measures intended to curb fraud.

Driven by Democratic legislators, the Illinois plan also aims to keep kids online from becoming dependent on social feeds in ways that damage well-being, helping keep children safe online while further closing off routes for adults to contact minors.

Status and Implementation Timeline

Lawmakers approved the bill unanimously on June 1, and it is scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2028. The governor did not specify when he will sign it.

Pritzker also criticized the federal government for failing to put stronger guardrails on social platforms and for not addressing new vulnerabilities tied to artificial intelligence.

At the federal level, several proposals related to youth online safety remain works in progress rather than settled law. The Kids Online Safety Act has advanced in Congress but has not been enacted; it has been positioned as a framework that would push platforms to take reasonable steps to reduce certain harms to minors, increase transparency, and offer protections and controls for younger users, while also drawing debate over how such duties might be enforced. Critics have argued that broad safety mandates could chill lawful speech by encouraging over-filtering or age-gating of content, and that compliance could increase pressure for stronger identity or age checks that create privacy and data-security risks.

Safety rules should be designed so platforms can protect minors without requiring everyone to prove who they are, because privacy and free expression can be harmed when identity checks become the default.

Other bills frequently discussed alongside that effort also have not been finalized into nationwide rules. COPPA 2.0 has been proposed as an update to children’s privacy protections but remains dependent on congressional action, with prospects tied to whether lawmakers can agree on how to expand coverage and enforcement without creating new data collection incentives. The Kids Off Social Media Act has been introduced and debated but has not become law. The Protecting Kids on Social Media Act has likewise been proposed, generally centering on stricter guardrails for minors’ use of social platforms—often including ideas such as stronger age assurance, limits on how minors are engaged or targeted, and added restrictions tied to youth accounts—though it has not been enacted.

He said the priority is protecting young people from the damage technology and social networks can cause, adding that Illinois is modernizing its approach to regulation while, in his view, Washington has not acted.

Critics of age-check requirements and related “online safety” approaches have also raised concerns that verification systems may be difficult to implement without collecting sensitive data, could be unevenly accurate, and might lead platforms to restrict access broadly for minors—or to reduce anonymity in ways that affect lawful expression.

Protect Minors in the Digital Age: International Moves

Ultimately, Pritzker said nationwide rules are needed to ensure consistent safety across the country, arguing that the next move must come from the federal government.

Pritzker’s Political Outlook

His name has been floated as a possible 2028 presidential contender. Asked about it Tuesday, he sidestepped the question and said he is focused on seeking another term as Illinois governor this year.