Good newsNew York Bans Chatbots Posing as Friends to Children and Orders Safer Baby Monitors
Governor Kathy Hochul signed two laws on 28 October. One bars AI chatbots from unsafe features with minors and lets the attorney general fine up to $25,000 a violation; the other makes internet-connected baby monitors keep strangers out.
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Two New York laws signed on 28 October turn vague worries about children and connected products into rules a regulator can enforce. One covers AI chatbots and minors. The other covers internet-connected baby monitors. Both put the burden on the company that sells the product, and the first comes with a price list for breaking it.
What the chatbot law stops
The governor’s office says the law (S.9051B/A.10379C) bars companies that offer AI chatbot features from providing unsafe ones to anyone under 18. The same bar applies to any user the company has not first confirmed is an adult. The sponsors are Senator Kristen Gonzalez and Assemblymember Alex Bores, and Attorney General Letitia James worked on the bill.
| Banned for under-18s | Detail, per the governor’s office |
|---|---|
| Pretending to be human | Posing as a real, living person or as having human emotions |
| Faked relationships | Claiming a personal, romantic, professional or authority-figure bond with a child |
| Probing | Unprompted emotional questions, or reuse of private health or personal information from earlier chats |
| Harm | Promoting or helping with suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, or drug and alcohol use |
| Isolation | Encouraging secrecy, isolation, or avoiding parents, trusted adults or professionals |
| Sexual content | Sexually explicit material, including child sexual abuse material |
How it will be enforced
Companies must check age by more than one method, and at least one cannot rely only on a government ID. Age data has to be deleted after use. The attorney general can seek civil penalties of up to $25,000 per violation, plus damages, restitution and the destruction of unlawfully collected data or AI models trained on it. The state must also run a public website for complaints.
For a parent, that last point is the practical one: there is a named place to report a chatbot that crosses the line. The governor’s page says the rules take effect “in the coming months” and gives no date.
The baby monitor law
The second law (S.9508/A.5175A) applies to internet-connected monitors that send audio or video over the internet and are sold in New York. New models must include features that stop strangers from seeing or hearing the child’s room. Each must also carry a clear label saying the device connects to the internet and that families should use its security features.
It takes effect 90 days after signing, which falls in late January 2027. Senator Andrew Gounardes sponsored it with Assemblymember Michaelle C. Solages. The governor’s page does not name the enforcer, set penalties or define technical standards, so the detail of what counts as adequate security is still to come.
Does it reach you?
The monitor law applies to products sold in New York, so a shopper in the state will see the label on new models after the law takes effect. Fortune says lawmakers also pointed to a 2015 study of monitor security when they made the case. The chatbot law covers any company offering chatbot features, not only the largest AI developers, because its test is what the feature does with a minor. Neither source says how many families or products are affected.
What industry says
Fortune reports that lawmakers’ concerns centred on low-cost white-label monitors sold on Amazon. Anushka Salinas, chief executive of the monitor maker Nanit, supports the law. She told the magazine it could push some cheap products off the market and argued her company’s roughly $300 monitor plus subscription is worth the cost. Nanit reports more than $100 million in revenue and at least 1 million daily users, according to Fortune. These are the company’s own figures.
What to watch
The first test is the chatbot law’s start date, which no source gives. The second is whether other states copy a model that bans specific behaviours instead of regulating “AI” in general. Hochul’s own summary is blunt: “No company should be peddling chatbots to kids encouraging self-harm or pretending to be their friend or more.”
