Current law requires Internet service providers to report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (a nonprofit organization primarily funded by the Department of Justice) information on apparent violations of laws against the sexual exploitation of children. S. 3170 would make numerous procedural changes to those reporting requirements. CBO estimates that implementing the bill would have no significant cost to the federal government.
Enacting the legislation would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply.
CBO estimates that enacting S. 3170 would not increase net direct spending or on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2029.
S. 3170 would impose an intergovernmental and private-sector mandate as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) on Internet service providers by expanding a duty to report violations of child pornography and sexual exploitation laws to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline. The bill would broaden the type of content that must be reported to include all visual depictions of child pornography and any planned or imminent violations of related laws. Because the mandate would narrowly expand existing duties, CBO estimates the cost of the mandate would fall below the annual intergovernmental and private-sector thresholds established in UMRA ($80 million and $160 million in 2018, respectively, adjusted annually for inflation).
