Deb Haaland, AG Raúl Torrez, and Rep Linda Serrato Announce Solutions to Protect Kids and Consumers

Today, Democratic nominee for Governor Deb Haaland, Attorney General Raúl Torrez, and State Representative Linda Serrato (HD-45) announced their support for legislation developed by the Attorney General and to be sponsored by Rep. Serrato. The two bills aim to strengthen protections for New Mexico kids and consumers from the harms of social media and artificial intelligence.

The two bills include proposed changes to the Unfair Practices Act and the introduction of a new Online Safety and Accountability Act. New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act dates to 1967, and its $5,000 penalty has not changed since 1970. That outdated framework governs a new economy where algorithms set prices, interface design steers choices, and personal data is sold far beyond what anyone agreed to. The changes to the Unfair Practices Act modernizes both what the law forbids and what happens when a business breaks it — protecting every New Mexican consumer, including the most vulnerable, so the cost of automated deception no longer lands on families as inflated prices, junk fees, and cancellation traps.

The Online Safety and Accountability Act, seeks to address the dangers New Mexico’s children face online, which are no longer just isolated to bad actors — they are built into how platforms and AI products are designed. The existing laws were not built to protect children from design choices like addictive scroll features or AI predators. The bill takes a new path to protect children: it regulates the design choices that cause harm — not speech, viewpoint, or what users post — while establishing a safety monitor within New Mexico’s Department of Justice to enforce the rules with effective penalties.

“Too often, corporations use new technology to maximize profits at the expense of our children’s safety and New Mexicans who work hard for a living, and our laws haven’t kept up to hold them accountable. The solutions we announced today will work to safeguard our children against harmful threats of technology and social media, as well as modernize unfair practices that cost New Mexicans their hard earned money, ” said Deb Haaland.

“Whether it’s an AI chatbot designed to keep a child emotionally hooked or an algorithm quietly deciding what a family pays at checkout, these harms are real,” said Attorney General Torrez. “Congress has failed to act because Big Tech’s power in Washington is too strong, but we weren’t afraid to lead in the courtroom, and we’re not afraid to lead in the legislature. New Mexico will build a cutting-edge model for holding these companies accountable that will set the standard for the rest of the nation.”

“Technology is changing faster than our laws, and New Mexico has an opportunity to lead on meaningful protections,” said State Representative Linda Serrato (HD-45). “I’m glad to collaborate with Attorney General Torrez. We took the lessons from his groundbreaking case against Meta and applied them to legislation that will help keep kids safe online, while also advancing strong consumer protections in the digital marketplace. I’m proud to carry these bills, and I’m glad to have Secretary Deb Haaland standing with us as we work to make New Mexico a national leader in protecting kids and consumers online.”

See Legislation Proposal Details Below:

A Bill to Protect Kids Online: Online Safety and Accountability Act

  • Sets design rules for children’s use. Social media, gaming, and similar platforms — and any consumer-facing AI service — must take reasonable care that design features like the feed, autoplay, and notifications don’t cause or worsen seven listed harms to kids: self-harm and eating disorders, compulsive use, harassment, grooming, age-restricted ads, data practices that feed them, and design tricks that push kids into purchases. It covers how a product is built, not what users post.
  • Turns off addictive features for minors. Chronological (non-algorithmic) feeds, a two-hour daily default, notifications silenced during school and overnight hours, adult-stranger contact blocked, and accounts matching sextortion or grooming patterns blocked automatically. These features will be on by default and adjustable only through a linked guardian account.
  • Confirms age while protecting privacy. Covered entities must determine whether a user is a minor using privacy-preserving methods such as an operating-system age signal or a zero-knowledge credential. Data collected for an age check must be deleted and cannot be reused for advertising, profiling, or brokering.  
  • Gives guardians real tools, enabled by default. Every minor account links to a guardian account with visibility into settings and time spent, purchase controls, alerts on harm-related activity, and control over the minor’s access to AI features — automatically, not buried in a settings menu.
  • Puts hard limits on AI directed at minors. Minors must be told when they are interacting with AI. A conversational system cannot sexualize a minor, pose as a licensed professional, discourage a child from seeking help, or use manipulative tactics to build emotional dependence, and it must run a documented crisis-response protocol. AI “nudification” apps and sexual deepfakes of identifiable children are banned, with removal required within 24 hours of notice.
  • Protects minors’ data. No training AI on a minor’s data, no selling it, and no targeted advertising or personality profiling. A child or parent can demand deletion within 15 days, and chat logs must be erased within two years after a child stops using the service.
  • Enforces rules with real teeth. A new Office of the Online Safety Monitor in the Department of Justice investigates and the Attorney General enforces. Penalties stack in three tiers of up to $50,000 each — a willful violation, knowledge that the user was a minor, and a repeat violation or defiance of a court order — reaching up to $150,000 per violation at the top of the range, with the jury setting the amount alongside disgorgement, receivership, and asset freezes.  

Bill to Protect Consumers: Modernizing the Unfair Practices Act

  • Restores real deterrence. Increases civil penalties from $5,000 to $50,000 per violation, with up to $50,000 more for targeting minors, people with disabilities, or those under guardianship; for repeat violations; or for defying a court order.
  • Empowers the Attorney General. Adds disgorgement, receivership, asset freezes, compliance monitors, and recovery of investigation costs and fees — plus the right to a jury trial — on top of injunctions and restitution.  
  • Strengthens private lawsuits. Raises statutory damages tenfold — $100 to $1,000, and $300 to $3,000 for willful conduct — and presumes harm in the aggregate once a violation is proven.  
  • Voids fine-print waivers. Makes contract terms that strip certain legal rights, bar an individual claim, or gag honest customer reviews unenforceable in court and arbitration alike, without invalidating arbitration itself.
  • Bans manipulative design practices. Defines and prohibits dark patterns  — privacy-hostile default paths, sneaky data opt-ins, false scarcity claims, forced clicks, and countdown-timer pressure.
  • Makes AI pricing transparent. Requires plain-language disclosure when an automated system generates or personalizes a price or offer, and bars secret personalized pricing built on personal data or protected traits.
  • Ends data bait-and-switch and cancellation traps. Makes it unconscionable to monetize personal data contrary to what was disclosed, or to make canceling or opting out harder than signing up.  
  • Prohibits algorithmic price-fixing. Reaches data intermediaries and shared pricing algorithms that pool competitors’ nonpublic data to inflate prices.
  • Cracks down on unwanted calls and texts. Updates the law to cover voice, text, and future technologies. Senders must identify themselves, honor opt-outs, and respect the do-not-call list. Recipients can sue for $100 per message.