AG Tong released the following statement praising final passage of legislation creating new civil enforcement mechanisms to crack down on deepfake digital sexual assault. House Bill No. 5312, An Act Establishing a Civil Action for the Office of the Attorney General and a Private Right of Action for Victims of Unlawful Dissemination of a Synthetically Created Intimate Images, builds on the 2015 state law first authored and championed by Attorney General Tong while serving as House Chair of the Judiciary Committee. That law made a crime the unauthorized dissemination of intimate images in an attempt to harm or harass. Last year, legislators built on that law to include digitally created images. This latest legislation will now afford rights to victims that criminal penalties do not, including the ability to take civil action against abusers and platforms that disseminate this illegal content. The legislation will empower the Office of the Attorney General to pursue civil injunctions and penalties against bad actor platforms to stop the spread of illegal images, including AI-generated child pornography. The bill further creates a private right of action, giving power to victims themselves to sue their abusers.

“They call it ‘synthetic.’ They call it ‘AI.’ I call it what it is: digital sexual assault. The trauma caused by a ‘deepfake’ is as real and as devastating as any physical photograph. This legislation creates serious new financial and legal consequences for those who fail to protect against abuse and promptly mitigate harm. My office is prepared to use the full weight of our law enforcement authority to hold abusers and their facilitators fully accountable,” -AG Tong.