S. 2381 — PROACTIV Artificial Intelligence Data Act of 2025

This section establishes the short title of the Act as the “Preventing Recurring Online Abuse of Children Through Intentional Vetting of Artificial Intelligence Data Act of 2025” or the “PROACTIV Artificial Intelligence Data Act of 2025”.

This section establishes definitions for terms used in the Act, including (1) artificial intelligence, as defined in section 238(g) of the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (10 U.S.C. note prec. 4061); (2) artificial intelligence developer, meaning a person who designs, codes, or produces an artificial intelligence system and makes it commercially available; (3) artificial intelligence deployer, meaning a person who integrates such a system into products or services made commercially available; (4) artificial intelligence user, meaning a person who uses such a system other than for personal noncommercial activity; (5) child pornography, as defined in 18 U.S.C. §2256; (6) covered dataset, meaning a dataset collected for artificial intelligence training using automated data crawlers or scraping tools; (7) data collector, meaning a person who collects, prepares, cleans, labels, transforms, and organizes data for such training; and (8) Director, meaning the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

This section directs the Director, in collaboration with the National Science Foundation, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Department of Justice, and other entities, to develop and publish within one year of enactment a voluntary framework providing guidelines, best practices, methodologies, procedures, and processes to artificial intelligence developers and data collectors—but not deployers or users—for detecting child pornography in covered datasets, removing it, and reporting it to federal, state, or local law enforcement and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. In developing the framework, the Director must solicit input from institutions of higher education, relevant federal agencies, civil society and nonprofit organizations, artificial intelligence developers and deployers, federal laboratories (as defined in 15 U.S.C. 3703), and other stakeholders, and provide an opportunity for public comment. The section further directs the Director of the National Science Foundation, in coordination with other relevant federal agencies, to support research on innovative approaches to detecting, removing, and reporting child pornography from covered datasets, including through the Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships.

This section establishes limited civil liability protections for artificial intelligence developers and data collectors that detect, remove, or report child pornography in covered datasets in accordance with a framework issued by the Director under section 3(a), requiring prompt dismissal of related causes of action. The protections do not apply to claims involving intentional misconduct, actual malice, reckless disregard of substantial risk of injury, gross negligence, or violations of 18 U.S.C. 2251 (i.e., sexual exploitation of children, including using minors in sexually explicit conduct for visual depictions). The section states that it does not affect protections or obligations under 18 U.S.C. 2258A (i.e., reporting requirements for electronic communication service providers regarding apparent child pornography).