COP Act

Key Points

• This bill, introduced by Senator Moody, aims to stop a practice often called sextortion by making it a federal crime to threaten to share explicit photos or videos of a child.
• It specifically targets predators who use existing images to scare a minor into creating or sending even more sexually explicit material.
• The law would apply even if the predator only believes the person they are talking to is a minor, which helps law enforcement catch people targeting children online even in undercover cases.
• By updating federal laws, this change allows the government to prosecute people who use threats as a weapon to exploit children, even before a new image is actually shared or created.