Why Parents Should Know About Sammy’s Law

Over the last couple of decades, parents have gained more tools and resources to help keep their kids safer online. The problem is, all of that technology can only go as far as social media companies are willing to allow, and many of them give little to no access to the monitoring tools parents need. These companies frame it as protecting user privacy, even when the "user" in question is a kid who probably shouldn't have that much unsupervised freedom in the first place.

This is exactly what Bark has been pushing back against with Sammy's Law. It's a bipartisan bill currently moving through Congress that, if passed, would require the biggest platforms to give access to trusted third-party safety software like Bark. That would completely change the game for the visibility parents have into their kids' online world, and it's why Bark has been closely involved from day one.

Here's the backstory behind Sammy's Law, what it would actually mean for parents, and how you can get involved.

Who Is Sammy? 

Sammy Chapman was 16. He was funny, curious, an A student, the kind of kid whose parents did everything right. They kept him away from dangerous people and dangerous places. What they couldn't have known was that a drug dealer would find their son on Snapchat, and that a single message would end his life.

On February 7, 2021, Sammy was contacted by a dealer through the app. He snuck out after his parents fell asleep and took what he believed was a normal pill. It was laced with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid so potent that even a microscopic dose can be fatal. Sammy never had a chance to know what he was taking. His parents never had a chance to stop it, because the platform where it happened gave them no way to see it coming.

This is what prompted Sammy’s parents, Sam Chapman and Dr. Laura Berman, to start Sammy’s Law to ensure other parents have that much-needed access to their children's online worlds.

Why Parental Control Apps Can't See Everything

When parents go looking for a parental control app, they don't realize that all of them are at the mercy of what a particular social media platform allows them to see. It's not that the technology doesn't exist, it's that apps like Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, and similar companies don't give permission to third-party apps to access their systems.

It's similar to how a bank can give a budgeting app permission to access transaction data to help a user budget their spending. In the same way, social media companies could give safety software permission to access their data to help parents supervise their kids' online activity. But there's no open door, no shared connection, and platforms have made it clear they intend to keep it that way. That's the entire reason dangerous conversations, like the one Sammy had, can happen in a blind spot no parent or safety app can reach.

What Sammy's Law Would Actually Do

Sammy's Law, formally introduced in the House as H.R. 2657 and in the Senate as S.4159, would require large social media platforms, those with more than 100 million monthly users or over a billion dollars in annual revenue, to give parents a way to connect trusted, FTC-registered third-party safety software to their child's account. Once a parent or child opts in, that software would be able to access real-time data flagging serious risks like drug activity, sexual exploitation, trafficking, self-harm, and suicidal ideation.

It's worth pausing on what the bill does not do. It doesn't hand over a child's entire digital life to a stranger, and it doesn't let companies dodge responsibility. Safety providers would only be permitted to share the specific information a parent needs to understand that their child is in danger, nothing more. Think of it less as surveillance and more as a smoke detector: it doesn't watch every room, but it goes off when something is actually on fire.

Where Sammy's Law Stands Today

The bill has real momentum. In March 2026, the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 36-16 to advance Sammy's Law to the full House, with lead sponsors Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Buddy Carter working alongside colleagues from both parties. In the Senate, Sens. Jon Husted, Mark Warner, and Katie Britt introduced a companion bill with similar bipartisan backing. Sammy's father has testified in support, standing alongside families of other kids, including James Wood, an Ohio teen who died after being targeted through a sextortion scheme on social media.

Still, a committee vote is nowhere near a finish line. The bill needs to pass a full vote in the House, then the Senate, and eventually get signed into law. Big tech companies have plenty of incentive to slow that process down, and history shows that even well-supported child safety bills can stall for years without sustained public pressure.

What Parents Can Do Right Now

This is the part where parents don't have to feel powerless. Public pressure has already pushed Sammy's Law further than most similar bills ever get, and it's going to take more of that to get it signed into law. Parents can:

• Sign the petition supporting Sammy's Law through the Organization for Social Media Safety.
• Contact their congressional representatives and ask them to support and prioritize the bill.
• Share Sammy's story, because these bills move faster when lawmakers hear from real families, not just lobbyists.

In the meantime, parents don't have to wait on Congress to start protecting their kids today. Tools like the Bark app send alerts for warning signs like drug-related conversations, predatory contact, and signs of depression, working within the access platforms currently allow. For families who want tighter control from the ground up, the Bark Phone comes built with these protections already in place. And the Bark Home lets parents manage which apps and sites are accessible on their home Wi-Fi, giving them a layer of protection that doesn't depend on any single platform's cooperation. Find our full suite of family safety products and see which one can help your family today. 

Sammy's story is heartbreaking precisely because it was preventable. Sammy's Law exists to make sure the next family doesn't have to go through what Sammy’s family did. Until it passes, Bark will keep building the tools parents need to see the dangers hiding in plain sight, and keep fighting for a future where every parent has the ability to keep their children safer online.