Abstract

Two different pieces of pending federal legislation share the acronym GUARD Act, but they address technological risks at opposite ends of the age spectrum. The Guidelines for User Age-verification and Responsible Dialogue Act of 2026 (S. 3062) would seek to protect minors from potentially harmful interactions with artificial intelligence chatbots and companions through age verification, access restrictions, disclosures, and other safeguards. The separate Guarding Unprotected Aging Retirees from Deception Act (H.R. 2978/S. 2544) would strengthen law enforcement capabilities to investigate increasingly sophisticated financial fraud affecting older Americans, including schemes involving artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency. Neither proposal has yet been enacted into federal law. Examining the two measures together highlights both their potential benefits and their possible unintended consequences, including questions involving privacy, cybersecurity, parental authority, access to beneficial AI technologies, digital inclusion, and civil liberties. Their contrasting approaches also raise a broader question likely to become increasingly important as artificial intelligence permeates everyday life: How can society protect people who may be particularly vulnerable to emerging technologies without unnecessarily limiting their ability to benefit from those same technologies?

Introduction

Congress is considering two distinctly different pieces of federal legislation bearing the acronym GUARD Act, each directed toward protecting a population lawmakers regard as particularly vulnerable to rapidly evolving digital technologies.

As of September 2026, neither measure discussed below has been enacted into federal law. Their legislative status differs, however, and the discussion below notes those differences where relevant. References to their provisions therefore describe what each proposal would do if enacted in its present form.

The first, S. 3062, the Guidelines for User Age-verification and Responsible Dialogue Act of 2026, focuses primarily on protecting minors from potentially harmful interactions with artificial intelligence chatbots and AI companions. The measure was originally introduced in October 2025 under the title Guidelines for User Age verification and Responsible Dialogue Act of 2025; the Senate-reported version uses 2026 in the short title. A House companion, H.R. 8623, was subsequently introduced.

The second, the Guarding Unprotected Aging Retirees from Deception Act, H.R. 2978/S. 2544, focuses on strengthening law-enforcement capabilities to combat financial fraud, particularly fraud affecting older Americans.

Although these pending bills address different problems and employ very different approaches, considered together they illustrate an increasingly important public-policy question: How should government protect potentially vulnerable populations from technology-enabled harms without unnecessarily restricting access, privacy, autonomy, and beneficial uses of technology?

The GUARD Act and Young People: S. 3062

S. 3062 would establish federal requirements governing certain artificial-intelligence chatbots available to consumers. The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the legislation in 2026, but committee action did not make the proposal law.

If enacted in its present form, the measure would impose age-verification and disclosure requirements and significant restrictions on minors’ access to covered AI systems. It would also establish restrictions involving sexual content and AI interactions concerning suicide, self-harm, and physical violence.

The legislation reflects growing concern about the ability of increasingly sophisticated AI systems to simulate friendship, emotional intimacy, counseling, and other forms of human interaction. The American Bar Association’s discussion of the pending legislation notes concerns that AI can generate or disseminate harmful content, manipulate users, or encourage harmful behaviors, with risks to minors potentially including grooming, addiction, self-harm, and harm to others.

Potential Advantages

Supporters of the proposal can point to several potential benefits.

Most importantly, the bill attempts to address the possibility that children and teenagers may be particularly susceptible to highly persuasive AI systems capable of creating the impression of an ongoing personal relationship.

Age verification could make it more difficult for children to gain unrestricted access to AI products intended for adults. A federal framework could also provide greater consistency than leaving individual companies to develop substantially different standards or relying upon a growing patchwork of state requirements.

The legislation’s enforcement provisions could create substantial incentives for developers to incorporate protections during product design rather than responding only after harmful interactions occur.

More broadly, the proposal represents an effort to establish boundaries while AI companion technology is still developing rather than waiting until particular practices have become firmly embedded in the marketplace.

Potential Disadvantages and Concerns

Critics, however, argue that these protections could impose significant costs.

The Cato Institute contends that the legislation could prevent minors from accessing beneficial AI applications, including tutoring, foreign language practice, and other educational tools. It also objects to the absence of a parental-consent mechanism that would permit parents to authorize their children’s access to covered products.

That criticism raises an important policy question: Should government establish a uniform prohibition for minors, or should parents retain greater authority to determine which AI applications their children may use?

There is also a definitional problem. AI functionality is increasingly incorporated into ordinary products rather than confined to stand-alone AI companions. Critics contend that broadly drafted definitions could therefore reach beyond the types of emotionally interactive AI companions that appear to be among the proposal’s principal targets.

The Age-Verification and Privacy Problem

Perhaps the most consequential criticism involves privacy.

Determining whether a user is seventeen or seventy may require information from everyone, not merely from children. Depending upon how verification systems are implemented, adults could potentially be required to provide identification, biometric information, or other personal data before accessing covered AI services.

The Disruptive Competition Project argues that broad age verification requirements could create additional repositories of sensitive information and corresponding cybersecurity vulnerabilities. It also contends that the legislation’s definitions could potentially extend age verification requirements beyond dedicated AI companions to other AI assisted services.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has similarly criticized mandatory age verification approaches from privacy, surveillance, and civil liberties perspectives.

This presents a fundamental tension in online child-safety policy:

Protecting children online may sometimes require collecting additional information about adults and children alike in order to determine who is a child.

Whether that additional collection of personal information produces a net improvement in safety is likely to remain an important part of the policy debate.

Potential Consequences for Adults and Senior Citizens

Although S. 3062 is primarily directed toward protecting minors, its practical effects would not necessarily end when a person turns eighteen.

If age verification becomes a prerequisite for accessing covered AI services, adults, including senior citizens, could also have to establish that they meet the required age threshold.

For technologically experienced users, that might represent little more than an inconvenience. For others, however, verification systems involving smartphones, identity documents, facial recognition, passwords, or third-party verification services could create an additional barrier to AI access.

That possibility deserves attention because generative AI may provide significant benefits to older people. Among other things, AI tools can assist users in understanding complicated documents, learning unfamiliar technology, obtaining general information, communicating with organizations, and navigating increasingly digital government, legal, financial, and commercial services.

There is therefore a possibility that measures designed primarily to protect children could inadvertently create digital access barriers for some older adults.

Privacy and security concerns may be particularly relevant as well. Requiring people to disclose additional identity information to access AI services could create new stores of valuable personal data at the same time policymakers are attempting to protect consumers from identity theft and technologically sophisticated fraud.

A Different GUARD Act for Older Americans

A second pending measure bearing the GUARD acronym approaches technological vulnerability from a substantially different direction.

The Guarding Unprotected Aging Retirees from Deception Act, H.R. 2978/S. 2544, seeks to strengthen the ability of law enforcement to investigate financial fraud, including increasingly sophisticated schemes affecting older Americans.

The House of Representatives passed H.R. 2978 on September 15, 2026. House passage, however, does not mean that the proposal has become law; further legislative action would be necessary before enactment.

Rather than restricting seniors’ access to technology, this GUARD Act would seek to provide law-enforcement agencies with better technological and investigative capabilities for combating people who use technology to perpetrate fraud.

AARP, which supports the legislation, reports that the proposal would allow federal funding to assist state, local, and tribal authorities with training, fraud specialists, and specialized technology for investigating increasingly complex scams, including schemes involving artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency.

Potential Advantages for Older Americans

The elder fraud GUARD Act would address a well-documented problem: sophisticated financial fraud can inflict particularly severe harm on people who lose retirement savings or other assets accumulated over a lifetime.

Modern fraud also frequently crosses jurisdictional boundaries. A victim may reside in one state, communicate with a perpetrator located somewhere else, transfer money through another jurisdiction, and ultimately have funds converted into cryptocurrency or transferred overseas.

Local law enforcement agencies may lack personnel with the specialized technological expertise necessary to investigate such transactions.

If enacted, permitting federal grant funds to support specialized investigators, forensic technology, training, blockchain analysis, and interagency cooperation could help reduce that investigative disadvantage.

Another potential advantage is the proposal’s focus on expanding permissible uses of law-enforcement resources rather than imposing broad new restrictions upon ordinary Internet users.

Potential Limitations and Concerns

The elder-fraud proposal nevertheless raises questions worthy of consideration.

Greater use of sophisticated forensic technologies and information sharing can create questions concerning what information is collected, who may access it, how long it is retained, how securely it is maintained, and whether safeguards adequately restrict its use to legitimate investigative purposes.

Those concerns do not necessarily argue against providing law enforcement with improved technological capabilities. They do suggest that implementation and oversight would be important if the measure becomes law.

There is also an inherent limitation to an enforcement centered approach: investigation frequently begins after fraud has occurred or is underway.

Improved investigative capabilities may assist in identifying perpetrators, tracing funds, recovering assets, and deterring future crimes, but law enforcement alone cannot eliminate the underlying problem. Consumer education, financial literacy, safeguards within financial institutions, telecommunications protections, cybersecurity, and early recognition of fraudulent communications remain important components of prevention.

Two Different Approaches to Protection

Viewed together, the two pending GUARD Acts reveal markedly different approaches to technology related risk.

For younger Americans, S. 3062 emphasizes restriction, age verification, disclosure, and limits on access.

For older Americans, H.R. 2978/S. 2544 emphasizes law enforcement, investigative capability, training, and technological assistance.

Both respond to identifiable concerns, but each approach also presents potential tradeoffs.

Young people may be particularly susceptible to persuasive or emotionally manipulative AI systems, but broadly restricting access could also interfere with beneficial educational uses of AI.

Older Americans may be attractive targets for financial fraud because of accumulated retirement savings and other assets, but expanded use of digital investigative technology and information sharing warrants appropriate attention to privacy and data safeguards.

The comparison therefore illustrates an important principle: digital safety and digital inclusion need not be opposing objectives, but poorly designed safeguards can cause one to undermine the other.

Potential Impact Across the Generations

The two proposals illustrate a broader challenge confronting lawmakers as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into everyday life.

For children and teenagers, the challenge is how to protect developing users from manipulation, inappropriate material, and harmful AI interactions without unnecessarily excluding them from educational and productive uses of artificial intelligence.

For parents, the legislation raises questions about the respective roles of families, technology providers, and government in determining children’s access to emerging technologies.

For working-age adults, age verification could introduce additional privacy and identification requirements even though they are not the population the youth focused legislation principally seeks to protect.

For older adults, the challenge operates in both directions. AI may provide valuable assistance in navigating an increasingly complicated digital environment, but the same underlying technologies can enable criminals to create more convincing impersonation, investment, romance, and other fraud schemes.

These questions also intersect with broader concerns about fairness in automated systems. Research and policy analysis have documented circumstances in which algorithmic systems can produce disparate or exclusionary effects. As AI becomes more deeply incorporated into employment, lending, health care, education, and other consequential activities, policymakers may increasingly have to consider not only whether AI systems are safe but also who can access them, who may be excluded, and whether safeguards themselves create unintended disparities.

 

Conclusion

The unusual existence of two pending federal measures commonly referred to as the GUARD Act provides a useful lens through which to examine the evolving relationships among age, artificial intelligence, privacy, consumer protection, and technological access.

One proposal would seek primarily to shield young people from potentially harmful AI interactions. The other would seek to equip law enforcement to protect older Americans from increasingly sophisticated technology-enabled financial deception. Neither proposal is presently federal law, and both remain subject to the legislative process and possible amendment.

Both nevertheless reflect growing concern about populations that may face distinctive vulnerabilities in a rapidly changing digital environment.

The central policy question extends beyond whether children and older Americans should be protected. The more difficult questions concern how those protections should be structured, how much personal information individuals should be required to surrender to obtain them, what beneficial uses of technology might inadvertently be restricted, what role parents should retain in determining children’s access to AI, and what safeguards should accompany government’s increasing reliance on sophisticated investigative technologies.

As artificial intelligence becomes more capable and more deeply integrated into education, communication, financial services, research, and everyday life, these questions are likely to become increasingly important, not simply for the youngest and oldest Americans, but for everyone in between.

Selected References and Additional Resources

The following sources provide primary legislative materials and additional analysis concerning the two pending federal measures discussed above. Because pending legislation can be amended as it moves through Congress, researchers should consult the official legislative sources for the most current text and status.

Primary and Official Legislative Sources

Guidelines for User Age-verification and Responsible Dialogue (GUARD) Act — AI and Minors

• U.S. Congress, S. 3062 — Guidelines for User Age-verification and Responsible Dialogue Act. The official legislative text and history of the Senate proposal addressing age verification and the use of certain artificial-intelligence chatbots and companions. The measure was introduced in October 2025 and subsequently reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee in an amended version in 2026.
  Congress.gov: S. 3062 — GUARD Act
  U.S. Government Publishing Office: S. 3062 — Senate-reported text
• U.S. Congress, H.R. 8623 — GUARD Act. House companion legislation addressing AI chatbots and minors.
  Congress.gov: H.R. 8623 — GUARD Act

Guarding Unprotected Aging Retirees from Deception (GUARD) Act — Financial Fraud and Older Americans

• U.S. Congress, H.R. 2978 — Guarding Unprotected Aging Retirees from Deception Act. The House legislation concerning the use of federal grant funds by state, local, and Tribal law-enforcement agencies to investigate elder financial fraud, pig-butchering schemes, and other financial fraud. The House passed the measure on September 15, 2026, and it was received in the Senate and placed on the Senate calendar on September 16.
  Congress.gov: H.R. 2978 — Guarding Unprotected Aging Retirees from Deception Act
  U.S. Government Publishing Office: H.R. 2978 — version placed on the Senate calendar
• U.S. Congress, S. 2544 — Guarding Unprotected Aging Retirees from Deception Act. Senate legislation addressing elder financial fraud and law-enforcement use of federal grants and technological tracing tools.
  Congress.gov: S. 2544 — Guarding Unprotected Aging Retirees from Deception Act
  U.S. Government Publishing Office: S. 2544 — Senate-reported version
• U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Financial Services, H. Rept. 119-709, Part 1. Committee report accompanying H.R. 2978, providing useful legislative background, explanation, and committee consideration of the elder-fraud measure.
  House Report 119-709, Part 1

Analysis of the AI and Minors GUARD Act

• American Bar Association, “Pending Legislation 4: Regulating AI Chatbots,” Paul Cochran. A useful legal and consumer-protection overview of the pending GUARD Act, including its proposed age-verification requirements, restrictions relating to minors, and relationship to existing state regulation.
  American Bar Association — Regulating AI Chatbots
• Global Policy Watch, “Senate Judiciary Committee Advances GUARD Act Regulating Minor Use of AI,” Nicholas Xenakis, Diana Lee & Evan Chiacchiaro, May 8, 2026. Discusses the Senate Judiciary Committee’s consideration of S. 3062 and summarizes significant provisions of the proposal.
  Global Policy Watch — Senate Judiciary Committee Advances GUARD Act
• Cato Institute, “GUARD Act Puts Policymakers, Not Parents, in Charge of Kids’ AI Use,” Jennifer Huddleston and Juan Londoño, April 29, 2026. Presents a critical perspective emphasizing parental authority, beneficial uses of AI by young people, free-speech questions, and privacy concerns associated with age verification.
  Cato Institute — GUARD Act and Kids’ AI Use
• Disruptive Competition Project, “The Hidden Costs and Data Vulnerabilities of the GUARD Act,” Brian McMillan, May 5, 2026. Critiques the proposal from privacy, cybersecurity, competition, and technological-innovation perspectives, with particular attention to the collection of information necessary for age verification.
  Disruptive Competition Project — Hidden Costs and Data Vulnerabilities
• Electronic Frontier Foundation, analysis of the GUARD Act and age-verification mandates. EFF has raised broader concerns about age-verification systems, privacy, surveillance, and access to lawful online expression.
  Electronic Frontier Foundation — GUARD Act analysis

Analysis of the Elder-Fraud GUARD Act

• AARP, “Congress Moves Forward on AARP-Backed Fraud Protections,” Miriam Cross, September 16, 2026. Describes AARP’s support for the Guarding Unprotected Aging Retirees from Deception Act and discusses how the proposal could assist law enforcement in investigating sophisticated fraud involving artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, and other technologies.
  AARP — GUARD Act and Financial Fraud
• R Street Institute, “Cybersecurity Score — Guarding Unprotected Aging Retirees from Deception (GUARD) Act,” Haiman Wong, July 21, 2025. Examines the proposal from a cybersecurity and law-enforcement perspective, including the use of federal grants for specialized personnel, forensic tools, training, blockchain analysis, information sharing, and interagency cooperation.
  R Street Institute — GUARD Act Cybersecurity Analysis

Broader AI Policy and Discrimination Resource

• Brookings Institution, “The Legal Doctrine That Will Be Key to Preventing AI Discrimination,” Chiraag Bains, September 13, 2024. Although not specifically an analysis of either GUARD Act, this article provides broader context concerning algorithmic discrimination, disparate-impact doctrine, and the possibility that apparently neutral automated systems or policies can produce unequal effects. It is useful background for considering the wider implications of AI regulation and access.
  Brookings Institution — Preventing AI Discrimination

Note for Researchers

Because both GUARD Acts remain part of an ongoing legislative process, researchers should distinguish carefully among introduced bill text, committee-reported or amended text, House or Senate passed versions, and secondary commentary. An article may accurately describe the version of a bill existing when that article was published while not reflecting amendments adopted later in the legislative process.

Researchers should therefore consult Congress.gov or the U.S. Government Publishing Office for the latest legislative text and status before relying upon a particular provision. The secondary sources listed above are included to provide a range of legal, policy, privacy, cybersecurity, consumer-protection, and civil-liberties perspectives; their inclusion does not constitute endorsement of the positions expressed.