Tracker changelog

Fixes four entries that were wrong or misleading on the live page, reconciles the July 18 law count, adds the Colorado, Idaho, Iowa and Oregon conversational AI acts, and gives New York’s SAFE for Kids entry a real deadline. No status flips and no map changes: AI companion laws are shown for context and do not color a state. asOfDate stays 2026-07-18 because this pass re-verified only the entries listed below, not all 51 jurisdictions.

• Four AI companion-chatbot laws added, in Colorado, Idaho, Iowa and Oregon. All four were read from the enacted instrument rather than a tracker table, which caught three errors: Idaho’s bill was amended on the floor, so the introduced text is not the law; Oregon’s minor break reminder is every three hours, not hourly; and Iowa’s act takes effect 2026-07-01 but does not apply until 2027-07-01, so nothing binds an operator yet. Oregon is the outlier of the group in giving individuals their own right to sue.
• Idaho: Added the Conversational AI Safety Act (S 1297, Chapter 249), effective 2027-07-01. Note the code citation is contested: Title 48 chapter 21 was already taken by the social media act in the same session, so the sections are published double-numbered as 48-2101 [48-2201].
• Iowa: Added the conversational AI service requirements (SF 2417, Iowa Acts ch. 1068). The act has no short title. It took effect 2026-07-01 but applies 2027-07-01, so it is listed as not yet effective.
• Oregon: Added the AI companions act (SB 1546, Oregon Laws 2026 ch. 85), effective 2027-01-01. It carries an express private right of action, the greater of actual damages or $1,000 per violation, which none of the other three do.
• Colorado: Added HB26-1263, the conversational AI operator act (Chapter 208), signed 2026-05-28. The act takes effect 2026-08-12, but only the age-estimation duty attaches then: the minor-specific duties, the AI disclosure, the suicide and self-harm protocol and the false-representation ban all start 2027-01-01, and reporting to the Attorney General starts 2027-07-01. For a kids’ product the date that matters is 2027-01-01.
• New York: The SAFE for Kids Act now carries a deadline instead of an open-ended “no final rule yet”. The New York State Register of 2026-07-22 still lists the rulemaking as proposed, with an expiration of 2026-10-01, so the Attorney General must adopt final rules by then or the proposal lapses and the 180-day clock never starts. The source link now points at the codified statute rather than the 2023 bill page.
• Virginia: Recorded the precise-geolocation sale ban added by SB 338 (2026 Acts c. 820), effective 2026-07-01. It is not limited to minors, so a kids’ wearable or family-location app cannot monetize Virginia location data at all. The known-child duties in subsection F are untouched.
• Nebraska: The Age-Appropriate Online Design Code Act was being described as the 2025 statute, without the LB 838 (2026) amendments that became operative 2026-07-17, one day before the last refresh. LB 838 removed the old "50 percent of revenue from selling or sharing data" threshold, so ordinary subscription and ad-supported apps are now covered, grew the covered design feature list from 5 items to 11, added a notification curfew, and added rules against weakening a minor account's defaults.
• New Jersey: Repaired a garbled passage in the Kids Code Act summary that had a duplicated vote tally and a broken sentence. The bill passed both chambers 2026-06-30 and is still unsigned.
• Massachusetts: Removed a 2026-10-01 effective date from a bill that is not law; that date comes from the engrossed House text, not from an enacted statute. Also updated the addictive-feeds bill, which was reprinted as amended and engrossed as S.3175 and referred to House Ways and Means on 2026-07-15.
• Louisiana: The Louisiana Data Privacy Act note read backwards, implying the Attorney General cannot act until 2027-08-01. That date is when the mandatory cure period ends, not when enforcement begins.
• Federal: the Senate Commerce markup of KOSA and the Kids Off Social Media Act has slipped off its July 29, 2026 target, and no replacement date is noticed on the committee calendar. Also records the KIDS Act being received in the Senate and referred to Commerce on 2026-07-13.
• Corrected the law count in the 2026-07-18 entry below, which said 93. The dataset held 98 on that date: the AI companion category and its five laws landed the same day, in a change that predates this changelog and never got an entry of its own.

No status, date, or rollup changes; both states stay enacted, not yet effective.

• New Hampshire: HB 1460's primary source now points at the chaptered final version (Chapter 168); the RSA 507-H merged page does not yet incorporate it.
• Indiana: HEA 1408 now spells out the effective-date split: the education provisions took effect 2026-07-01, the social-media article takes effect 2027-01-01.

Tracked laws went from 110 to 98: 25 dead bills dropped after their sessions adjourned, 8 laws added here, and 5 more added the same day with the new AI companion category. asOfDate moved to 2026-07-18. This was also the tracker’s full-review baseline month, when all 51 jurisdictions were re-verified against primary sources and the dataset-invariant spec was written, so the changelog starts here and does not reconstruct earlier history.

• Connecticut: SB 1295 minors framework flipped to in force (took effect 2026-07-01).
• Idaho: HB 542 flipped to in force; the enrolled text keeps the July 1, 2026 emergency effective date.
• Mississippi: HB 1224, the Keeping Kids Safe Online Act, flipped to in force (effective 2026-07-01).
• Nebraska: LB 383 flipped to enacted, enjoined after a split preliminary injunction (NetChoice v. Hilgers), later stayed pending the 8th Circuit appeal.
• Texas: SB 2420 effective date corrected to 2026-01-01; the field had held the Fifth Circuit stay date.
• Louisiana: HB 37 signed date corrected to 2025-06-11 per the official action history.
• 8 laws added: Minnesota's social-media warning-label law, New York's Safe by Design Act, South Carolina's SHASM Act, the minors provisions of Louisiana's and Alabama's new privacy statutes, Arkansas's Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act, plus pending bills in California (AB 1856) and Massachusetts (S.3164).
• 25 dead bills dropped across Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Washington, and Wisconsin after their sessions adjourned without passage.
• Every litigation string re-verified against the dockets (SCOTUS declining to vacate the Texas stay, the Ohio panel reversal that is not yet final, the consolidated 8th Circuit Arkansas appeals, and the rest).