Our mission is to protect children and defend parental rights by equipping families and citizens with the tools to keep kids safe online. We oppose government surveillance disguised as child safety legislation and seek to build an informed, independent, parent-led coalition to #ProtectKidsOnline.
As parents, we are navigating a world that changes faster than ever. New platforms, new technologies, and new challenges can feel overwhelming, but the most important tool we have has not changed.
Protecting Kids Online is a national coalition of parents, families, concerned citizens, and advocacy organizations united by a single conviction: children deserve to be genuinely protected online, not surveilled in the name of safety.
We are fighting to protect children's privacy and parental rights from government digital ID mandates and data farming legislation that exploits the language of child safety to build surveillance infrastructure. And we are equipping parents with the knowledge and tools to protect their children right now — because real child safety starts at home, not in a government database.
While parents are at the center of this fight, the constitutional implications extend to every American. Age verification mandates require identity submission from all users, not just families, making this a civil liberties issue as much as a parental rights issue. The more difficult question is not whether children should be protected (of course they should) but whether a particular policy represents a necessary, constitutional, and appropriately limited exercise of government authority. That is the question Protecting Kids Online exists to ask and answer.
We are not affiliated with any political party, corporation, or think tank. We read the bills. We show up.
"Technology may shape the environment our children experience, but parents shape the foundation they stand on. Parents are the firewall keeping kids safe."
- Julie Barrett
Protecting Kids Online monitors and fights bills that claim to protect kids but create harm instead. We oppose:
Age Verification for All Adults.
There are several bills around the country that would require identity verification to access social media. These bills don't just affect minors; they surveil every American. The data infrastructure these bills create serves platforms and government agencies far more than it serves families.
Digital ID Mandates. Age verification is just the beginning. The same infrastructure being built to verify who can download an app is the foundation for a permanent government identity layer across every digital platform. Once it exists, it will be used — by government agencies, law enforcement, and the platforms themselves. A digital ID mandate by any other name is still a digital ID mandate.
Ed Tech and School Devices. In K–12 classrooms, school-issued devices collect behavioral data on children without meaningful parental consent or oversight. Most parents have no idea what their child's school is sharing or with whom.
AI and Social Media. AI companions are marketed to children with no safety standards. Social media platforms are designed for engagement over well-being. Proposed legislative "solutions" to these areas often make the surveillance problem worse, not better.
When the personal becomes political.
In 2021, our family experienced a crisis that exposed something I hadn't known existed: Washington State laws that gave the government authority to override parental decisions about our own child's care. What I encountered was a system designed to circumvent parental rights in the name of protecting children— and it changed the course of my life.
Shortly after, I met a legislator who helped me understand how those laws were made and who had passed them. I started reading legislation. Then I started showing up to testify. I couldn't stop.
I testified on all kinds of bills, but I was most passionate about legislation affecting parents and children; the laws that quietly strip families of authority while claiming to protect them. When we moved to Florida in 2023, I kept going. The issues were everywhere.
In 2025, I started hearing about the App Store Accountability Act. Many of the parent organizations I was connected to were supporting it. When I read the bill myself, I realized something was wrong. This bill didn't empower parents or protect children. It handed children's data to corporations and created a government identity verification system dressed up as child safety.
I began testifying against it in state after state. And the more I showed up, the more I realized: there was no organized parent coalition asking the same questions I was. The bills were moving fast. The other side was coordinated and well-funded. And parents — real parents who had actually read the legislation — were almost never in the room.
That's why I built Protecting Kids Online. Not because someone asked me to. Because someone had to.
— Julie Barrett, Founder & Executive Director