EdLaw nat/us/state/ca/ab-2246/README.md

language: en · status: enacted · last checked: 2026-10-13

AB 2246 (2026) — online services likely to be accessed by children

Enacted, not yet in effect. AB 2246 (Stats. 2026, ch. 187), approved by the Governor and filed with the Secretary of State on 10 September 2026, repeals the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act — Title 1.81.47 of Part 4 of Division 3 of the Civil Code, which this corpus carries as CAADCA (enjoined) — and adds a new Title 1.81.47 (§§1798.99.28–1798.99.34) under the same heading, "Online Services, Products, or Features Likely to be Accessed by Children". It has no effective-date clause, so it takes effect on 1 January 2027 under Cal. Const. art. IV, §8(c)(1): "a statute enacted at a regular session shall go into effect on January 1 next following a 90-day period from the date of enactment of the statute".

Applicability to EdTech

The new title binds "A business that provides an online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children" (§1798.99.29(a)); "Child" means "a consumer or consumers who are under 18 years of age" (§1798.99.28(b)(1)), and the indicators of being likely to be accessed by children include a service "directed to children as defined by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act" and one with "design elements that are known to be of interest to children" (§1798.99.28(b)(3)). The CCPA definitions apply (§1798.99.28(a)), and the title "does not apply to the information or entities described in subdivision (c) of Section 1798.145" (§1798.99.33).

Profiling a child by default is barred unless the business has appropriate safeguards and the profiling is necessary for the service or "to enhance the safety, privacy, or education of a child" (§1798.99.29(b)(1)(B)(ii)). A business must "take reasonable steps to prevent" four risks of harm to children (§1798.99.30(a)) — the same four covered harms as Adam's Law.

Key obligations at a glance

Enforcement

Injunction and civil penalties of up to $5,000 per affected child for each negligent violation and $15,000 for each intentional one, in an action by the Attorney General or a public prosecutor; no private right of action; Attorney General regulations — §1798.99.32.

Contents

Document Covers
AB-2246.md The chaptered bill in full: Legislative Counsel's Digest; SEC. 1 repealing Title 1.81.47; SEC. 2 adding the new Title 1.81.47 (§§1798.99.28–1798.99.34)

Licence

The corpus reproduces the chaptered text of AB 2246 and the Legislative Counsel's Digest verbatim from the California Legislature's own database. Statute text enacted by a state legislature is outside copyright under the government edicts doctrine. In Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., 590 U.S. 255 (2020) (slip opinion, read 2026-10-01), the Supreme Court held: "Under what has been dubbed the government edicts doctrine, officials empowered to speak with the force of law cannot be the authors of—and therefore cannot copyright—the works they create in the course of their official duties." The Legislature's XML carries the comment "Copyright © Legislative Counsel Bureau, State of California."; the Bureau is the Legislature's own drafting office, and the same opinion holds that "Because Georgia’s annotations are authored by an arm of the legislature in the course of its legislative duties, the government edicts doctrine puts them outside the reach of copyright protection." The bulk-export readme (pubinfo_Readme.pdf, read 2026-10-13) states no copyright notice or terms of use.

Conditions: none attach. The corpus names the official source in Sources and in each section's {.meta} provenance line, and Meta describes what it changed (anchors added, nothing reworded).

Sources