Activities / What code does / Deploys a chatbot
Deploys a mental-health chatbot
deploys_mental_health_chatbot
Your app offers a chatbot that provides therapy, counseling or mental-health care, or presents itself as doing so.
- scope code
- in the registry since 1.14
- 8 laws in 8 jurisdictions name it
What triggers it
The lint's definition. It offers a chatbot that provides therapy, counseling or mental or behavioral health care, or is offered as doing so. A clinician's own note-taking or scheduling AI is not this.
This covers a therapy or counseling bot and a chatbot marketed as mental or behavioral health care.
What does not
A clinician's own note-taking or scheduling AI does not count.
It implies Deploys a chatbot, so the rules written for every chatbot reach it too.
Often confused with Deploys a chatbot and Deploys a companion chatbot.
The law it brings into scope
The kinds of law that name this activity in the LexLint law library, with the number of laws and jurisdictions in each, as of . The examples are chosen by rule, laws in force first and the widest jurisdiction first; each section's page lists every law.
| Area of law | Laws | Jurisdictions |
|---|---|---|
|
AI law
Tell people when they are dealing with an AI system or its output, and control the uses the law calls high-risk. |
8 | 8 |
This activity implies Deploys a chatbot, so every law that names that activity reaches it too. These areas of law reach it only that way:
- Cybersecurity law:
112 laws in
74 jurisdictions,
through Deploys a chatbot
Build software securely, handle reported flaws, and report incidents on a deadline.
- Communications law:
28 laws in
24 jurisdictions,
through Deploys a chatbot
Get consent before marketing, calling, recording or storing data on a device, and honor an opt-out.
- Product and AI liability law:
28 laws in
26 jurisdictions,
through Deploys a chatbot
Answer in damages when defective software or an AI system causes harm.
- Privacy law:
9 laws in
9 jurisdictions,
through Deploys a chatbot
Have a legal basis for personal data, honor people's rights over it, and report a breach.
- Age gating law:
1 law in
1 jurisdiction,
through Deploys a chatbot
Check or estimate a user's age, or design for the children likely to use the product.
- Scraping law:
1 law in
1 jurisdiction,
through Deploys a chatbot
Stay within computer-access law, a site's terms, and the copyright in what is copied.
Counterparties that usually come with it
- a model provider that writes the answers
- a licensed professional who oversees the service
A component that cannot run as documented without one of these names
it in its ACTIVITIES.md under talks_to, with
required: true. That party's jurisdiction then joins the
run of every product that uses the component, and the finding says
why it is there. A default the deployer can change is asked about,
never added. Talking to a party never makes a product that party.
In a declaration
A library or framework that makes this possible enables
it; an application whose shipped code does it performs it.
For a library
For an application
History
In the registry since version 1.14, .
Added for HB 452 (2025), mental health chatbot disclosure (Utah), AB 406 (2025), AI mental and behavioral health care provider and marketing prohibitions (Nevada), the law that turns on it.
In the glossary: Deploys a mental-health chatbot.
The activity registry is LexLint's open list; this page's text is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.