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New Jersey teens could lose tracking-heavy app features
Under the proposal, covered services would have to disable some location sharing, search indexing and interaction counts unless a young user opts in. The bill also says companies cannot target minors with ads for alcohol, tobacco, gambling or narcotics.
The New Jersey Kids Code Act would change what young users see and share online by default. It would give minors stronger privacy settings and tell platforms to use less of their personal data unless the service needs it.
Lawmakers say the point is to create a safer online space for children to learn, explore and play without making families fight every platform setting on their own.
The settings that shape the experience
The bill is aimed less at the obvious hazards of the internet than at the defaults that shape a child’s day online. It points to stronger privacy settings for minors, tighter limits on data collection and third-party access, and more protection against targeted advertising, invasive tracking and addictive design features.
That matters because the experience of a platform is often decided before a user taps anything. If the default is built to harvest more data, serve more ads or keep a child scrolling longer, parents can end up trying to undo what the product was designed to do in the first place.
Why lawmakers are treating this as a health issue
The measure is framed against a broader youth mental health crisis. In its findings, lawmakers cite rising adolescent suicides, depressive episodes and feelings of sadness and hopelessness in New Jersey and across the country, along with research linking heavy internet use to depression, anxiety, loneliness and suicidal ideation, especially among adolescents and young adults.
The bill also cites a Pew Research Center figure saying 46 percent of U.S. teenagers ages 13 through 17 were online almost constantly in 2022. Another report, Growing Up Online, advised lawmakers on Sept. 15, 2025, to require stronger default privacy settings and more limits on tracking and ads. The argument behind the bill is simple: if kids are going to spend that much time online, the products themselves should be made less intrusive from the start.