Megan Garcia told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee in September that chatbot technology "in its current form" is not safe for children, requesting proper age verification so users under 18 cannot access chatbots, after her 14-year-old son died by suicide following months of conversations with a Character.AI chatbot. Robbie Torney, senior director of AI programs at Common Sense Media, also testified that AI companions should not be available to children below a certain age, with panelists agreeing on the need for strong safety measures. OpenAI said in October 2025 that about 0.15% of users in a given week "have conversations that include explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent," and a Pew Research study indicated about two-thirds of teens have used a chatbot. However, age gating AI faces practical and ethical barriers, including securely assessing every user's age, managing collected data, free speech issues, and privacy concerns. Joe Mullin, senior policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said, "There's no form of age verification that is not privacy invasive" and "no system that's even close to perfect." The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act was mentioned in the context of implementation complications.