New Illinois law seeks to protect minors from ‘vlogging,’ influencer parents

[July 13, 2024]  By Glenn Minnis | The Center Square contributor

(The Center Square) – Illinois is now home to a first of its kind law that opens the door for children to be entitled to compensation for appearing in their parents or guardians social media content.

The law went into effect earlier this month with a goal of protecting children from “vlogging,” or the production of video blogs created for the purpose of generating income. As part of its reach, the groundbreaking legislation introduced by state Sen. David Koehler, D-Peoria, also requires parents to establish a trust account for the minor in question provided they earn revenue from their child’s likeness in videos posted online and hold it in a trust account until the child turns 18.

The law further stipulates that a minor is involved in the business of “vlogging” whenever at least 30% of the vlogger’s video content over a month-long period is produced using the child’s “likeness, name or photograph of the minor.”

Family Online Safety Institute policy specialist Marissa Edmund is welcoming the new law as a critical first step to protecting children.

“This is not a cure all and a catch all for all of the potential exploitation that happens to children being viewed online either in their parents content or their own, but this is one way in which we can acknowledge that there should be some economic justice for children, for minors,” Edmund told The Center Square. “We have child labor laws and we see that very clearly as being necessary and this to me seems like a natural way to incorporate how technology and the workforce has changed.”

While the law also requires that parents and guardians annually report to the Illinois Department of Labor how much money they made from their child in the monetized videos, how many hours the child worked to produce the content and how much was deposited into the child’s trust account, Edmund argued more steps need to be taken to make sure minors are fully protected.

“We would love to see a federal data privacy law, comprehensive data privacy law, so that all of our data can be more protected,” Edmund added. “I think some increased protections for children and for minors is also important to protect their data privacy. This has been around for many years now and a lot of these kids that are now adults … have spoken out about how their personal lives were put on display for the world to see and they didn't have a say in the matter.”

The law also allows the minor to demand the “permanent deletion” of any content they were previously featured in and file a lawsuit if that request is not honored.

Edmund said the idea for the bill came from 17-year-old Shreya Nallamothu, who worked with Koehler’s office on crafting wording for the bill after growing concerned about the dangers she feels young people face from being constantly filmed for and featured in vlogging content.