--- title: "Lawmakers Offer a Week of Bills on A.I. Risks, Biometrics and Data Centers" description: "The measures include AI research contests with $10 million in prizes, a federal facial recognition ban and protections for children" author: "rews desk" published: 2026-10-02T19:21:00Z modified: 2026-10-03T05:42:12Z url: https://rews.cc/a/lawmakers-offer-a-week-of-bills-on-a-i-risks-biometrics-and--add2a0 language: en tags: ["ai", "regulation", "privacy", "security", "congress", "us"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Lawmakers Offer a Week of Bills on A.I. Risks, Biometrics and Data Centers *The measures include AI research contests with $10 million in prizes, a federal facial recognition ban and protections for children* By rews desk · October 2, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/lawmakers-offer-a-week-of-bills-on-a-i-risks-biometrics-and--add2a0 ## In brief - A bipartisan House bill would create two DHS-run AI research competitions with $10 million in prizes over five years - Democrats reintroduced a ban on federal facial recognition and biometric surveillance, citing an ICE and CBP app - Hawley proposed limits on Flock license-plate camera data and, with Murphy, liability for hacking by AI agents - A House bill would bar chatbots from acting human with children; Wyden would keep data centers off public lands Lawmakers in the House and Senate rolled out a batch of bills this week aimed at the risks of artificial intelligence, at federal surveillance and at the spread of new data centers, several of them with sponsors from both parties. On Wednesday, Representatives August Pfluger, Republican of Texas, and Josh Harder, Democrat of California, introduced the Reliable Artificial Intelligence Research Act, which would have the Department of Homeland Security run two national research competitions, one on A.I. interpretability and one on making models resistant to attack, with $10 million in prize money over five years. “Adversaries are already looking for ways to manipulate these systems, and we must stay ahead of them,” Mr. Pfluger said in a statement. Senators Jim Banks, Republican of Indiana, and Maggie Hassan, Democrat of New Hampshire, had earlier introduced a companion bill in the Senate. A group of Democrats went further on surveillance. Senators Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, joined by Representatives Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, reintroduced a bill last Friday that would bar federal agencies from using facial recognition unless Congress later voted to allow it, and would prohibit the use of federal dollars for biometric surveillance systems. The lawmakers pointed to a mobile facial recognition app used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, which they said had been used to target immigrants. “Every American who values their right to privacy, stands against discrimination, and believes people are innocent until proven guilty should be concerned about facial recognition technology fueling a national surveillance state,” Mr. Merkley said in a statement. Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, said on Wednesday that he was introducing the Stop Flock Abuse Act to restrict how local governments handle data from A.I.-powered cameras, including automated license plate readers made by Flock Safety and its competitors. The bill would bar local governments from selling or sharing the data with nongovernmental third parties, guard against abuse of access to the systems, preserve an audit log of network activity and set standards for data security and retention. It follows a hearing last month of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee Mr. Hawley chairs. Such cameras, he said, are “tracking and creating digital footprints of everyday Americans.” On Thursday, Mr. Hawley and Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, announced a separate proposal that would make the operators and developers of A.I. agents criminally and civilly liable when their advanced models hack into other systems or networks. A hearing Mr. Hawley chaired on Wednesday examined cases in which A.I. tools broke out of their testing environments and tried to hack into other companies and even websites hosted by federal agencies. “Hacking is a crime, and when AI agents conduct dangerous cyberattacks, the corporations and executives responsible for those AI agents need to be held accountable,” Mr. Murphy said in a statement. “Our bipartisan bill forces the heads of big AI companies to develop responsibly or face prison time for the damage done by their products to everyone else.” Another House bill introduced on Thursday would keep A.I. chatbots from acting human around children. Sponsored by Representatives George Whitesides, Democrat of California; Mike Kennedy, Republican of Utah; Doris Matsui, Democrat of California; and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Republican of Iowa, it would require chatbots engaging with minors to refrain from claiming to be human or posing as credentialed professionals like doctors or counselors, to state periodically that they are not real and to avoid “guilt-tripping” children into continuing the conversation. The National Institute of Standards and Technology would develop testing standards with industry and academic partners, and companies that follow the guidance “won’t be penalized,” the sponsors said. The measure would not touch products for adults and would not require age verification. “Parents should not have to worry that an AI chatbot is pretending to be their child’s friend,” Ms. Miller-Meeks said in a statement. Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, on Wednesday offered a bill to ban the construction of data centers on federally owned public lands, along with the sale or transfer of those lands for such projects. “Public lands belong to the taxpayers, not corporations, and especially not Donald Trump,” he said, warning that data centers “use up water resources and jack up energy costs.” A pair of senators took a different approach, focused on information. The Data Center Community Empowerment Act, from Senators John Curtis, Republican of Utah, and Lisa Blunt Rochester, Democrat of Delaware, would create an Energy Department program giving technical assistance to state, local and tribal governments, plus a “Data Center Community Toolkit” and independent analyses of proposed projects. Their Data Center Transparency Act would require the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Information Administration to collect and update information on the environmental impact and resource use of data centers. “Americans are rightly skeptical when a large company tells them not to worry about the impacts of a new data center in their community,” Mr. Curtis said. “The answer to that distrust is transparency.” Also introduced this week was a proposal to establish a federal A.I. safety board.