New Report: State Lawmakers Pass More than 200 Tech Policy Laws in 2024

In the absence of federal regulation, states continue to lead the development of technology policy in the United States, passing 238 bills in 46 states in 2024, a 163 percent increase from last year, according to a new report from NYU’s Center on Technology Policy (CTP) and NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics (CSMaP).

States filled the void in several key areas, passing 107 laws on artificial intelligence, 48 on child online safety, and 28 on privacy, for example. This surge in legislation was powered by increasing single-party control of state governments (called “trifectas”), which helps them enact new laws more quickly than the federal government. In 2024, 40 states had trifecta governments, the most in at least three decades, and those states accounted for 89 percent of tech laws passed nationwide.

These trends are likely to continue heading into 2025, according to the report, with Democratic-led states potentially pushing back against Trump administration priorities and Republican-led states championing regulations aligned with the new administration.

“States are often referred to as the laboratories of democracy, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing as states take the lead on technology policy development,” said Scott Babwah Brennen, Director of NYU’s Center on Technology Policy and co-author of the report. “While the federal government has held hearings and drafted bills on key areas such as AI, child online safety, and privacy, they ultimately passed very few pieces of legislation. Facilitated by historic levels of single-party control, states lawmakers have filled this gap by increasing both the scope and quantity of regulation, dealing with topics ranging from deepfakes to age verification to genetic data privacy to crypto mining.”

The report — the third in a series first launched by CTP in 2022 — reviews enacted state technology regulation and synthesizes major trends across states. Last year’s report, which tracked six policy areas, found that 30 states passed 65 bills. The 2024 version examines eight total topics: artificial intelligence, child online safety, privacy, cryptocurrency, data centers, antitrust, content moderation, and taxation. 

The first three policy areas dominated state regulation in 2024.

• Artificial Intelligence: AI continued to be a central priority for state legislators, with 41 states passing 107 new laws. States enacted a series of issue-specific bills related to non-consensual sexual imagery, political deepfakes, and copyright protections. Colorado passed a comprehensive AI bill, but other efforts to pass more encompassing AI legislation failed in states like California and Connecticut.

• Child Online Safety: Despite strong legal pushback, child online safety remained a bipartisan issue, with 23 states passing 48 new laws focused on imposing design restrictions, requiring age verification, and burnishing parental rights to control their children’s online activities.

• Privacy: The Washington Privacy Act continued on its path to become a national privacy standard, as seven more states enacted laws based on that model. States also enacted a series of issue-specific privacy regulation: 18 states passed laws regarding biometric data, two extended privacy protections on biometric data to include neural data, and two states passed laws to protect genetic privacy.

Looking ahead to the upcoming legislative sessions, the researchers expect these trends to largely continue in 2025. Yet, predicting state action is difficult given the incoming administration’s uncertain tech policy agenda. For example, while the Trump administration has signaled it will limit federal regulation in some areas, they have indicated stronger enforcement in others.

“In 2025, we expect state lawmakers to develop their policy agendas in reaction to the Trump administration’s priorities,” said Zeve Sanderson, Executive Director of NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics and co-author of the report. “Democratic-led states will likely function as trailblazers, regulating areas where the federal government is prioritizing deregulation, such as AI and cryptocurrency. They could also act as bulwarks, proactively pushing back against federal action on issues like platform moderation and privacy. Conversely, we expect Republican-led states to generally pursue policy priorities set by the Trump administration, such as further deregulating crypto, prioritizing AI innovation over risk mitigation, and incentivizing data center construction regardless of climate impact.”