On April 17, 2024, House Bill 353, providing civil and criminal remedies for the wrongful disclosure of deep fakes that depict individuals in the nude or engaging in sexual conduct, was reported out of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee with 6 favorable votes and 2 on its merits.

In particular, the bill defines 'deep fake' as synthetic media where:

• the synthetic media appears to a reasonable person to depict a real individual saying or doing something that did not actually occur; and/or
• the synthetic media provides a reasonable person a fundamentally different understanding or impression of the appearance, action, or speech than a reasonable person would have from an unaltered, original version of the image, audio recording, or video recording.

The bill provides the depicted individual, who suffers harm from an intentional disclosure or threatened disclosure by a person of a deep fake without their consent, with a cause of action against such a person, as well as civil and criminal remedies.

Furthermore, the bill provides for felony prosecution for individuals creating a visual depiction of a minor who is nude or engaging in sexual conduct.

You can read the bill here and track its progress here.

Update: May 8, 2024

Bill passed by House with amendments and assigned to Senate

On May 7, 2024, the bill was passed by House and assigned to Senate Judiciary Committee. On the same date, Amendment HA 1 was introduced and passed by the House, effectively renaming the bill into 'The Amelia Kramer Act.'

You can read the bill here, the amendment here, and track the bill's progress here.