In one paragraph
South Carolina's S 896 was introduced as the Chatbot Protection Act (Chapter 80 of Title 39). The Senate Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee reported it favorably with an amendment on May 6, 2026, and the amended text is the Protecting Children from Chatbots Act: operators with 50,000 or more monthly active users would need age verification and parental consent for minors, with civil penalties of up to $50,000 per violation. It has not passed the Senate.
Plain-English summary, written with AI assistance. The official text controls.
What it means for business
None yet: the bill has not been enacted. In its amended form, chatbot operators with 50,000 or more monthly active users would need age verification, parental consent for minors and incident reporting.
Key provisions
- Introduced version: applied to any chatbot provider with no user threshold, required affirmative consent for data use, and set civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation.
- Committee-amended version: a 'covered entity' is a chatbot operator with 50,000 or more monthly active users worldwide; it must offer a limited-access mode and verify age before enabling restricted features, and minors may use them only with verifiable parental consent.
- Age-verification data must be deleted within 24 hours, and chat logs and data of authorized minor accounts cannot be used for advertising or model training except in narrow safety-related cases.
- Covered entities must not put engagement ahead of user well-being, must detect emotional dependence, prevent false claims of being human and give crisis messages; covered incidents must be reported to the Attorney General within 15 days.
- The Attorney General may seek injunctions and civil penalties of up to $50,000 per violation, each day separate; affected users and parents of harmed minors may sue.
- Takes effect upon the Governor's approval. Committee report: favorable with amendment on May 6, 2026.
Latest legislative action
May 6, 2026. Committee report: Favorable with amendment Labor, Commerce and Industry
Sponsors
| Name | Role | District |
|---|---|---|
| Allen Blackmon R | Sponsor | SD-027 |
| Joshua Kimbrell R | Sponsor | SD-011 |
| Matthew Leber R | Sponsor | SD-041 |
| Overture Walker D | Sponsor | SD-022 |
Topics and industries
Related topics
Affected industries
This page is general information, not legal advice. Summaries are AI-assisted and may contain errors; read the statute for the controlling text and talk to a lawyer about your situation. Full disclaimer · Report an error