This bill creates a new chapter in Title 19 RCW called the Washington Protecting Children Online Act (S-3830.1 / Senate Bill 6111). It defines key terms including “digital service,” “digital service provider,” “known minor” (a child 16 or younger whom the provider knows is under 17), and “personal identifying information.” The law applies to online services that let users socially interact, sign in with profiles, and create or post content viewable by others, while listing several specific exemptions (for example, basic email/messaging-only services, certain news/sports/commerce/game services with only incidental interactivity, employment data processors, and ISPs/search engines/cloud providers that only provide access). It requires age registration before account creation, commercially reasonable age verification appropriate to risk, and express parental or guardian consent before allowing a known minor to hold an account, with acceptable consent methods to include a coordinated videoconference or other methods defined by attorney general rule. The bill limits how providers may collect, use, share, or sell a known minor’s personal identifying information (only what is reasonably necessary for the service and the stated purpose), forbids collecting precise geolocation for known minors, and bans targeted advertising involving unlawful material toward known minors. It requires providers to make commercially reasonable efforts to develop and implement strategies to prevent or mitigate known minors’ exposure to enumerated harms (including self‑harm, substance use, stalking/violence/harassment, grooming/trafficking/sexual exploitation, incitement of violence, and other illegal activity), while clarifying providers need not prevent a minor from deliberately searching for content and may provide informational or clinical resources. Enforcement authority is given to the attorney general to investigate and bring actions and seek injunctions; courts must impose civil penalties up to $10,000 per violation for violations of injunctions. The chapter does not create a general private right of action but allows a parent or guardian of an affected known minor to seek declaratory or injunctive relief. The bill includes a severability clause. This is a new regulatory law imposing procedural and substantive privacy and safety obligations on covered digital service providers, with administrative enforcement and civil penalties for injunction violations and a narrowly defined private enforcement path for parents or guardians. It does not create a new criminal offense in the provided text. Some details are not included in the extracted facts: the specific attorney general rule language defining “express consent,” the precise meaning of “commercially reasonable efforts” or the required “level of certainty appropriate to the risks,” the exact new chapter number added to Title 19 RCW, and more detailed enforcement procedures beyond the attorney general’s authority and the stated penalty for violating injunctions.

If enacted, many companies that run social, profile-based services where users create or post content will need to add age checks, age verification, and parental consent steps before children 16 or younger can hold accounts, and they must sharply limit what child personal data they collect and use (no precise location, no targeted ads tied to unlawful material, and no selling/sharing of a child’s identifying information except in limited law‑enforcement or safety situations). Those companies will also have to adopt and show efforts to prevent or reduce children’s exposure to a list of harmful content (self‑harm, sexual exploitation, bullying, incitement to violence, etc.), while a set of common services (ISPs, search engines, email-only tools, some news/commerce/game platforms, employment or career services) are carved out. Practically, affected providers should expect added operational costs, new product and privacy workflows, and legal risk if they don’t comply: the state attorney general can investigate and sue, parents can ask a court to order a company to stop violating the law, and courts can fine companies up to $10,000 per violation of such court orders. The exact burden on companies is uncertain in two key ways because the bill leaves undefined what counts as “commercially reasonable” age verification or prevention efforts and defers the specifics of acceptable parental consent methods to rules the attorney general must adopt.