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CIVIC HERALD
S 1829 · 119th Congress · SenateOther

STOP CSAM Act of 2025

In plain language: This legislation allows victims of child sexual abuse and exploitation to file civil lawsuits directly against tech companies, websites, and app stores that knowingly or recklessly host or promote abusive content. It removes standard online liability shields for these claims, establishes a minimum damages award, and eliminates any statute of limitations, while giving platforms a legal defense if they remove reported material within 48 hours. The bill also imposes multimillion-dollar fines on tech providers that fail to promptly report illegal material to safety clearinghouses and requires large online services to publicly report on their child protection measures. Additionally, it strengthens courtroom privacy protections for young victims and witnesses and helps manage financial restitution payments.

Provisional: our plain-language summary, pending review.

Provisionalunreviewed: impact, issue tags, provisions, stakeholders, summary
People affected—Not determinable from the text provided; the bill applies broadly to child victims, federal court participants, and users/operators of interactive computer services without specifying numerical headcounts.
Fiscal magnitude$40.0Mprovisional · pending reviewDirectly authorized appropriations totaling $40,000,000 per fiscal year ($25,000,000 under Sec. 2(a)(5) for federal court guardian ad litem representation, and $15,000,000 under Sec. 3(6)(q)(5)(A) for restitution trustee/fiduciary administration), excluding potential criminal fines and civil penalties.
Reach76provisional · pending reviewrigor: heuristic llm
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Issues

What this bill touches.

Big-tech & platforms+65Sentencing & corrections−30Courts & liability+60Online speech+55

The sign shows the bill's direction on each issue (+ toward, − away); the number is its magnitude. Color never encodes good or bad, and never party.

Who it affects

Who it helps · who it burdens.

Who it helps

  • Child victims and witnesses of abuse and exploitationGains expanded privacy presumptions against public disclosure of records, the right to an adult attendant in court, expanded mandatory restitution, and private civil rights of action against online platforms and app stores with liquidated damages and no statute of limitations (Sec. 2, Sec. 3, Sec. 5).provisional
  • Online service providers and domain name registrarsReceives statutory immunity from federal and state civil claims and criminal charges for good-faith reporting, preserving evidence, or conducting research and developing tools to stop online child sexual exploitation (Sec. 4(a)(2)).provisional

Who it burdens

  • Online service providers, interactive computer services, and app storesMust report known CSAM and exploitation offenses to NCMEC within 60 days or face criminal fines and civil penalties, large platforms must submit annual transparency reports to DOJ and the FTC, and interactive computer services face new criminal penalties and civil liability without Section 230 immunity for hosting or facilitating CSAM (Sec. 4, Sec. 5(c)).provisional
  • Criminal defendants convicted of child exploitation offensesFaces expanded mandatory restitution requirements covering obscene depictions of minors under federal law and can be ordered to pay additional fees to cover the costs of court-appointed victim restitution trustees (Sec. 3).provisional
  • Federal probation officers and guardians ad litemRequired to consult child abuse multidisciplinary teams when drafting presentence reports, while guardians ad litem must collect and submit child victims' views using age-appropriate forms (Sec. 2(a)(4)).provisional
  • Attorneys, law firms, and civil litigantsSubject to federal court sanctions under Rule 11 standards for repeatedly bringing bad-faith CSAM lawsuits or raising bad-faith defenses (Sec. 5(c)(1)(i)).provisional

Dollar-level funding (FEC sector totals) is coming in a later phase.

What it does

The provisions, in plain language.

  1. Expands federal privacy protections for child victims and witnesses in court proceedings, creating a legal presumption against publicly disclosing their personal, medical, and educational records.

    Sec. 2(a)(1)-(3)provisional

  2. Authorizes courts to appoint a trustee or fiduciary to manage restitution payments for minor, incapacitated, or foreign victims, allows courts to order defendants to pay trustee fees, and authorizes $15 million annually for administrative costs.

    Sec. 3(6)provisional

  3. Requires online service providers to report known child sexual abuse material and child exploitation offenses to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children within 60 days, imposing criminal fines up to $1 million and civil penalties up to $250,000 for failing to report or preserve evidence, starting 120 days after enactment.

    Sec. 4(a)(1)provisional

  4. Requires online platforms with over 1 million monthly users and $50 million in annual revenue to submit annual public reports to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission on their tools, policies, and safety measures for combating child sexual exploitation.

    Sec. 4(a)(1)(G)provisional

  5. Makes it a federal crime for interactive computer services to intentionally host child sexual abuse material or knowingly promote or facilitate child exploitation offenses, setting fines up to $5 million.

    Sec. 4(a)(6)provisional

  6. Creates a federal private right of action allowing victims to sue online platforms and app stores that intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly host, promote, or aid child sexual abuse, providing at least $300,000 in liquidated damages, removing statutes of limitations, and denying Section 230 liability immunity.

    Sec. 5(c)provisional

How your members of Congress line up

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Timeline

How it moved.

  1. Jun 26, 2025Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 106.
  2. Jun 26, 2025Committee on the Judiciary. Reported by Senator Grassley with an amendment in the nature of a substitute. Without written report.
  3. Jun 26, 2025Committee on the Judiciary. Reported by Senator Grassley with an amendment in the nature of a substitute. Without written report.
  4. Jun 12, 2025Committee on the Judiciary. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably.
  5. May 21, 2025Introduced in Senate

The original text

Read it for yourself.

Read the original text →

Sources & provenance

Congress.govrefreshed 9 days ago

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