Explained: New Kids Code in New Jersey

Background

New Jersey joins Maryland, California, Nebraska, and Vermont as the latest states to pass the Age-Appropriate Design Code (NJAADC). Governor Mikie Sherrill began advocating for kids’ online safety measures during her campaign in 2025, and has followed through on those campaign promises. As Governor, she has signed a package of Executive Orders including Executive Order 6 which, among other directives, would establish the Office of Youth and Mental Health Safety and Awareness. This department would prioritize children’s mental health in digital environments, engage with expert stakeholders, and establish more collaboration across departments.  

In 2025, FOSI wrote a comprehensive summary outlining the key similarities and differences in the Codes across the states in Cracking the Codes: What Age Appropriate Design Means for Parents and Families. This brief provides an update on the most recent Kids Code and how it could impact New Jersey families.

Overview

The NJAADC protects kids and teens by requiring strong default privacy and safety settings for minors. The knowledge standard – if and how a platform knows the age of a user – is important to determine how data is collected and which accounts belong to minors. 

Who is Covered?

Some of the biggest issues in the kids online safety debate are: what platforms are going to be in scope of the law, what ages do the regulations apply to, and subsequently, what do other users (adults) have to do to satisfy the law. For instance, definitions of covered platforms that exclude popular apps that children use could make a law ineffective. Definitions that include platforms that do not pose the same risks could impose burdensome requirements on users unnecessarily. Here is how the NJAADC defines the platforms it will cover and the ages the regulations would apply to.

Users

The New Jersey Kids Code defines “minor users” as anyone under the age of 18, while “child” refers to anyone under the age of 13. This means that the provisions of the law, including the features designated safe or unsafe for kids, would apply to anyone under the age of 18. While the law defines these two age groups separately, there are no differences in the online experiences or safety mandates for either group and they are essentially treated the same.

Potential impact

FOSI believes in a proportional, tiered approach to children’s online experiences, similar to what is mirrored in the real world. Just as children develop and have new experiences in the real world, they should also be able to do so online in ways that reflect their increasing maturity and agency. Applying the same guidelines to all minors may not always be appropriate. It remains to be seen if these definitions will come into play in the future, but for now 13 to 17 year olds will share the same privacy and safety settings by default.

Platforms

The law applies to platforms that conduct business in New Jersey, generate more than $25 million in revenue annually, and are “reasonably likely to be accessed by a child or a minor.” This is defined by three factors: if a platform is directed to a child as defined by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, if at least 2% of the platform consists of users between the ages of two and seventeen, or if the platform knew or should have known that the online service was being accessed by a 2 to 17 year old. This definition covers the major social media platforms. The law explicitly excludes, however, telecommunications companies and apps that are used exclusively for sending private and direct messages. 

Age Assurance

Age assurance is a key component of all kids’ online safety bills. The NJAADC broadly explains the ways in which platforms should determine a user’s age. The law uses an “actual knowledge” standard for companies. In this instance, it is a broad definition meaning that an online service provider must use all information available to them. This includes a commercially-reasonable age assurance mechanism, age flags, and/or inferences made by the platform for marketing and advertising purposes, to determine the age of the user. This inclusive definition could help avoid some of the challenges previously faced by laws that explicitly required age verification to access social media, such as privacy concerns and limiting access to protected speech. Platforms would have to use all information reasonably available to them to infer the age of a user.

What the law will do and what this will look like for children and families

The NJAADC outlines several safeguards companies, specifically those with algorithmic recommendation systems, must comply with. They include:

• Apply the highest privacy settings by default. This can include a number of safety measures like not displaying a minor‘s location to other users, prohibiting the platform from recommending a minor’s posts or content to an adult user, disabling count interactions such as likes and comments (and creating customizable settings that allow users to enable or disable each of these features), prohibiting the display of accounts connected to the minor’s account, as well as other actions. 
• Create a reporting mechanism. This can be used by the minor or the parent or caregiver of the child to report harms experienced on the platform.
• Prohibit overnight notifications for minor accounts. Notifications must be off by default and notifications are prohibited from being sent to a minor between the hours of 10pm and 6am and between 8am and 4pm (school hours) from Labor Day to Memorial Day. 
• Prohibit targeted advertising and limit personal data use. Minors’ personal data such as age must only be collected or used for the purposes of determining age and that data must be deleted after 15 days. 
• Establish a “preferences” interface. Platforms will be required to create an interface that allows minor users to select what types of content and media they would like to see. This will ensure their “explore” or “for you” pages only show media that was specifically requested by the minor user. This is an important distinction as the law clearly states that nothing in this law should prohibit minors from accessing content that they request to see – a significant point of contention in other design code laws. 

Enforcement

The law includes a private right of action which allows the minor or parent of the minor to bring a lawsuit against a platform that violates the law. The New Jersey Attorney General may also bring a lawsuit. The platform, if found liable, could be responsible for up to $5,000 per violation, plus damages and attorney and legal fees. 

Impact and Next Steps

The NJAADC is a comprehensive online safety law that, when implemented, will impose new safety measures on platforms that provide recommendation systems. Design features like autoplay, infinite scroll, ephemerality, gamification tools such as badges, rewards, and streaks, filters that alter a user’s appearance, and notifications that prompt users to return to an app, are all subject to being banned by default for minors. These features will be turned off automatically and may need parental consent in order for minor users to have access to them. This law would materially change many of the most popular apps that minors use today. 

The law will go into effect on September 1, 2027. Until then, we may see companies that operate in the state take proactive measures to ensure their teen accounts comply with the law. So far, of the states that have passed a Kids Code, California and Maryland have had lawsuits brought by industry groups to stop its implementation. However, with each iteration, states update the law incrementally to ensure that it can withstand First Amendment challenges. 

Tackling the design features on platforms rather than content and removing clauses like “best interest of a child” (known as the duty of care), the New Jersey Age-Appropriate Design Code takes a departure from previous laws, likely allowing it to withstand constitutional challenges.