Senate committee reviews House changes to bill on minors’ online privacy; rule deadline moved to 2027

MONTPELIER, Vt. — The Vermont Senate Committee on Institutions on May 27 reviewed House amendments to Senate Bill 69, called "Kids Cove," focusing on how the bill would regulate online services that interact with minors and on a new rulemaking deadline for the Attorney General, committee counsel Rick Siegel said.

The review matters because the changes alter who the bill would cover, what types of personal data and design practices are prohibited, and how the law would be enforced; those changes affect covered businesses, processors (including some government entities), and minors across Vermont.

Rick Siegel, an attorney serving as counsel to the committee, walked members through a side-by-side comparison of the Senate-passed text and the House amendments. "Green means that their language was added to the House version. Red means language was removed from the Senate version," Siegel said as he described the document the committee used to compare the two versions. He summarized multiple substantive changes the House made to definitions, exclusions, enforcement, and rulemaking responsibilities.

Major definitional changes in the House amendment include adding an "age range" definition to clarify references to an interval or a label indicating ages above or below a specific…