North Carolina SB 722: Umstead Exempt/Dairy/NC A&T State University.

Bill Text

GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA
SESSION 2025
S 1
SENATE BILL 722

Short Title: Children's Online Safety Act/Funds. (Public)
Sponsors: Senators Garrett, Batch, and Everitt (Primary Sponsors).
Referred to: Rules and Operations of the Senate
March 26, 2025
*S722-v-1*
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED 1
AN ACT ENACTING SAFEGUARDS TO PROTECT CHILDREN ONLINE, 2
ESTABLISHING THE ONLINE SAFETY DIVISION AT THE DEPARTMENT OF 3
JUSTICE AND THE CYBERBULLYING UNIT AT THE STATE BUREAU OF 4
INVESTIGATION, CREATING THE ONLINE CHILD SAFETY COMMISSION, AND 5
APPROPRIATING FUNDS FOR THOSE PURPOSES. 6
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts: 7
SECTION 1.(a) Chapter 114 of the General Statutes is amended by adding a new 8
Article to read: 9
"Article 11. 10
"Online Safety Division. 11
"§ 114-75. Division established; duties. 12
(a) There is hereby established in the Office of the Attorney General of North Carolina, 13
the Online Safety Division (Division). The attorneys assigned to this Division shall function as 14
an independent regulatory office within the Department of Justice focusing on online safety, with 15
an emphasis on the protection of children online. The Division shall have the following duties: 16
(1) Investigation of complaints made under the Chapter 114B of the General 17
Statute (Children's Online Safety Act). 18
(2) Educating of law enforcement agencies and the general public about the online 19
safety of all North Carolinians, with an emphasis targeting harmful activities 20
and dark patterns. 21
(3) Issuance of online safety standards and guidelines, and review of relevant 22
industry codes pertaining to internet safety, age-appropriate design, and 23
compliance with the Children's Online Safety Act. 24
(4) Facilitating advisory panels on internet safety, including child development 25
experts, technology specialists, parent representatives, community 26
stakeholders, and industry representatives." 27
SECTION 1.(b) Effective July 1, 2025, there is appropriated from the General Fund 28
to the Department of Justice the sum of five million dollars ($5,000,000) for the 2025-2026 fiscal 29
year and the sum of four million five hundred thousand dollars ($4,500,000) for the 2026-2027 30
fiscal year to establish the Child Safety Division as enacted by this section. 31
SECTION 2.(a) The General Statutes are amended to add new Chapter to read: 32
"Chapter 114B. 33
"Children's Online Safety Act. 34
"§ 114B-1. Definitions. 35
The following definitions apply in this Article: 36

General Assembly Of North Carolina Session 2025
Page 2 Senate Bill 722-First Edition
(1) Age-appropriate design. – Design focused on developmental needs of 1
children. 2
(2) Child or minor. – An individual under eighteen (18) years of age 3
(4) Covered platform. – An internet platform providing online services having 4
more than five million (5,000,000) users in North Carolina and revenues 5
exceeding twenty-five million dollars ($25,000,000) annually. 6
(5) Dark patterns. – Manipulative design elements in online environments. 7
(6) Division. – The Online Safety Division of the North Carolina Department of 8
Justice. 9
(7) Harmful content. – Content that includes cyberbullying, self-harm promotion, 10
sexually explicit material, violent content, discrimination, and other physical 11
or psychological harms. 12
(8) Online service. – Social media, gaming platforms, messaging services, 13
content-sharing platforms, and other user-interactive services provided by a 14
covered platform. 15
"§ 114B-2. Duty of care established; mandated protections for children; requirements for 16
covered platforms. 17
(a) It is the public policy of this State that its children are owed a duty of care with regard 18
to their online activities in order to limit foreseeable harm and their exposure to dark patterns and 19
harmful content on covered platforms. Further, the General Assembly endorses age-appropriate 20
design and strong parental controls as central to protecting children in online service 21
environments. 22
(b) Covered platforms shall require parental notification for accounts created by children 23
and must offer robust, easy-to-use parental supervision tools such as filtering options, contact 24
management, time limits and scheduling, purchase controls, and activity reporting. 25
(c) It is unlawful for covered platforms to use dark patterns or deploy features known to 26
be addictive or manipulative. 27
(d) Covered platforms shall establish clear definitions of what constitutes cyberbullying 28
and include provisions for direct reporting to the Division, as well as provide intervention and 29
support services for affected children, including mediation options where appropriate. 30
(e) Each covered platform shall submit to the Online Safety Division an annual Child 31
Impact Assessment for new an existing services on the platform. The assessment shall include 32
documentation of potential risks to children and assessment of addiction and compulsive usage 33
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