The U.S. Senate has approved Senator Jon Ossoff’s bipartisan bill, the REPORT Act, aimed at shielding children from online sexual abuse and exploitation. Co-sponsored with Senator Marsha Blackburn, the Act enhances the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's reporting system by strengthening their national tip line and extending evidence preservation of online exploitation to aid law enforcement in investigating such crimes.
Ossoff emphasized the bill's intent to hold tech firms accountable for reporting and removing child abuse material online, with its mandates for websites and social platforms to report Federal trafficking and enticement of children. The legislation would also increase fines for companies that knowingly and willfully fail to report child sex abuse material on their site. The legislation follows previous efforts from Sen. Ossoff and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to strengthen Federal protections against the sexual abuse of children, with a similar bill passed the Senate earlier this year.
