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Online Child Safety and Accountability Act

Full Title:
STOP CSAM Act of 2025

Summary#

This bill is focused on reducing online child sexual exploitation, improving protections for child victims and witnesses in federal court, and increasing tech-industry reporting and accountability. It changes criminal, civil, and court rules to require more detailed reporting to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), broaden victims’ civil claims against platforms, and strengthen privacy protections for victim information in court. The broad goal is to support victims, speed investigations, and push online services to do more to find and remove child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

Key changes

  • Requires online providers to report to NCMEC within 60 days after getting actual knowledge of certain crimes or apparent child pornography, and to include detailed account and content information when available.
  • Adds criminal and civil penalties for providers who knowingly fail to report, preserve material, or submit false or incomplete reports; penalties scale up with company size and harm to individuals.
  • Creates a new private civil claim allowing victims to sue interactive service providers and app stores for intentionally or recklessly promoting, hosting, or making child sexual exploitation material available; damages, fees, and injunctions are available.
  • Expands court protections for victims and witnesses (now called “covered persons”), defines a broad set of “protected information,” and creates a strong presumption against public disclosure of that information.
  • Clarifies and expands restitution rules, allows courts to appoint trustees to hold restitution for child victims, and authorizes annual appropriations to support these court functions.
  • Requires large providers (thresholds by users and revenue) to submit annual transparency reports to the Attorney General and the FTC about CSAM reporting, safety tools, trends, and policies; some of those reports will be published with redactions.

What it means for you#

  • Children who are victims or witnesses (and their families)

    • More types of information about them in federal court are treated as “protected information” (names, contact info, medical and education records, online account IDs).
    • Courts must presume public disclosure of that information would be harmful and deny disclosure unless someone rebuts that presumption.
    • Victims can have a guardian ad litem and be accompanied by an adult when attending proceedings; recordings rules are updated.
    • Courts may appoint trustees to hold restitution money for child victims.

  • Online platforms, app stores, and large websites (providers)

    • Must report to NCMEC within 60 days after actual knowledge of specified crimes or apparent child pornography and include specified account and content details when reasonably available.
    • Must affirmatively search, screen, or scan for CSAM and other listed indicators (the bill uses the phrase “affirmatively search, screen, or scan”).
    • Large providers meeting user and revenue thresholds must file yearly transparency reports to the AG and FTC, with parts published publicly (subject to redaction).
    • Face new criminal fines and civil penalties for knowingly failing to report or preserve material, or for false/omitted reporting. Penalties vary by company size and may increase if individuals are harmed.
    • Face expanded civil liability: victims may sue for hosting, promoting, or making available CSAM or aiding certain sexual exploitation crimes. Section 230 safe-harbor will not be read to block these claims.

  • Law enforcement and NCMEC

    • Will receive more structured reports and may get more material and technical identifiers for investigations.
    • NCMEC has authority to compare technical identifiers and forward matching materials to law enforcement, including some foreign agencies designated by the Attorney General.

  • Judges and courts

    • Must treat disclosure of victims’ protected information under a presumption of harm and apply a higher showing to allow public disclosure.
    • Authorized funds are provided (see Expenses) to help implement guardianship and restitution-trust functions.

  • Developers, small platforms, and researchers

    • The bill narrows some protections for providers in existing liability law where the conduct relates to reporting and preservation. Limitations on sharing preserved material allow use for research only in narrow, good-faith circumstances.
    • The bill includes explicit protections for encryption use as not by itself creating liability, but evidence about encryption choices may be admissible.

Expenses#

Estimated public cost: The bill authorizes specific appropriations for court-related functions, but no full fiscal estimate is provided in the bill text.

  • The bill authorizes $25,000,000 per fiscal year to the United States courts to carry out the guardian-ad-litem and related protections in the amended victim-protection statute.
  • The bill authorizes $15,000,000 per fiscal year to the United States courts to support appointment and supervision of trustees or fiduciaries holding restitution funds for child victims.
  • Fines and civil penalties collected under the reporting provisions are to be deposited into the Child Pornography Victims Reserve.
  • Other likely costs (not estimated in the bill text): added workload for NCMEC and law enforcement from more and more detailed reports; administrative costs to the Department of Justice and FTC to collect and publish provider reports; and compliance costs for providers to implement scanning, preservation, recordkeeping, and annual reporting systems.
  • No comprehensive fiscal note or total cost estimate is included in the bill text.
    No publicly available information beyond the appropriations and the penalty deposit rule is included in the bill text.

Proponents' View#

The bill appears intended to:

  • Increase detection and removal of child sexual exploitation material by requiring timely, detailed reporting to NCMEC and by directing providers to look for CSAM.
  • Strengthen protections for child victims and witnesses in federal court by expanding what counts as protected information and creating a presumption against public disclosure.
  • Improve victims’ ability to recover money and to have funds held safely (courts may appoint trustees).
  • Hold online platforms and app stores accountable through civil liability and fines if they intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly host or promote child sexual exploitation material.
  • Increase transparency about how large providers detect, report, and try to prevent child sexual exploitation through required annual reports to the AG and FTC.

Opponents' View#

The bill’s text raises several possible concerns or trade-offs:

  • The reporting and scanning requirements, plus new criminal and civil penalties, may impose significant compliance costs on providers and could be harder for smaller services to meet. The line between “actual knowledge” and other states of awareness may be unclear for some cases.
  • Expanding private civil liability and limiting the effect of Section 230 for these claims could increase litigation risk for platforms and app stores. Even with defenses, the ability to sue without a statute of limitations could raise long-term legal exposure.
  • The bill requires affirmative scanning and searching for CSAM. Although it says encryption use alone is not a basis for liability, the law allows courts to consider actions concerning encryption as evidence. This could create tension with end-to-end encryption and user privacy in practice.
  • Some reporting and transparency requirements may touch on sensitive or proprietary information. The bill allows redaction and protects trade secrets, but it leaves discretion to agencies for what to publish.
  • The bill will likely increase the volume of reports to NCMEC and law enforcement. The bill does not fully specify resources or processes for handling a significantly larger flow of reports beyond the authorized court appropriations.
  • Several terms and operational details (for example, exact scope of “reasonable measures” a provider must take when including account content in reports) are left to implementation and could create uncertainty for providers and courts.