Which U.S. states specifically criminalize creating sexual deepfakes and what are their statutory penalties?
Executive summary
A broad and rapidly growing body of state law now criminalizes the creation or distribution of sexual deepfakes, with most statutes concentrated on non‑consensual adult intimate imagery and separately on AI‑generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM); national trackers report that dozens of states have enacted such laws since 2019 [1] [2]. Penalties vary widely—ranging from civil causes of action and misdemeanors with fines to felony exposure, multi‑year prison terms, and enhanced penalties when victims are minors or when defendants intended fraud, harassment, or other specific harms [3] [4] [5] [6] [7].
1. What the state landscape looks like now
By mid‑2025 and into 2025–2026 reporting, the patchwork of statutes had become national in scope: Ballotpedia and related trackers reported that roughly 45–46 states had enacted laws addressing sexually explicit deepfakes or related conduct, reflecting a fast pace of adoption since 2019 [2] [1], and public interest groups and policy trackers maintain state tables documenting ongoing bills and enacted laws [8].
2. How the statutes are structured — adults versus minors
States typically take two separate approaches in statute text and penalties: many broaden revenge‑porn or impersonation laws to criminalize non‑consensual sexual deepfakes of adults, while a distinct and urgent tranche of laws amends child‑pornography/CSAM statutes to expressly include AI‑generated images of minors—making creation, possession, or distribution of such images a crime often carrying the same severe penalties as traditional CSAM [9] [7].
3. Concrete penalty examples from recent laws
Selected statutes illustrate the range of punishments: Pennsylvania’s 2025 Act 35 established criminal penalties that include misdemeanor and felony options and specific penalties when deepfakes are used for fraudulent or injurious purposes [4]; Washington’s HB 1205 criminalizes intentional use of a “forged digital likeness” to harass, defraud, threaten, or intimidate and builds civil and criminal liability into the scheme [4]; Michigan’s 2025 law makes creating AI sexual imagery of an identifiable person without written consent a crime punishable for some offenses by up to one year in jail and fines up to $3,000, with felony exposure possible in aggravated scenarios [5]; New Jersey’s 2025 statute creates criminal and civil penalties and classifies some deepfake offenses as third‑degree crimes carrying 3–5 years’ incarceration for specified conduct [6].
4. Higher stakes when minors are involved
Laws that fold AI images into CSAM statutes are uniformly severe: Louisiana’s Act 457, South Dakota’s SB 79 and a wave of other 2024–2025 statutes explicitly criminalize AI‑generated depictions of minors and update possession/distribution offenses to encompass computer‑generated child sexual imagery, triggering traditional CSAM penalties [7] [9]. Reporting shows that at least 18–20 states had enacted statutes explicitly targeting sexual deepfakes of minors by late 2024 and 2025 [9] [10].
5. Where penalties vary and why — intent, dissemination, and remedies
Differences between states turn on required proof (some statutes require proof of intent to harm, harass, defraud, or cause serious emotional distress), the medium and scope of dissemination (posting to a website or monetizing content can elevate charges), and whether the statute offers only civil remedies or criminal sanctions as well; legal trackers and practitioner alerts emphasize that many states blend civil causes of action with criminal penalties and that federal law (the TAKE IT DOWN Act) also imposes platform removal duties, adding another enforcement layer [3] [4] [11].
6. Limits of available reporting and practical next steps
Public trackers and law‑firm summaries provide counts and notable examples but do not uniformly publish every statute’s precise sentencing table in one place, so a true state‑by‑state statutory penalty chart requires consulting each enacted bill or state code directly; current sources are clear, however, that most states criminalize sexual deepfakes in some form and that penalties span civil relief, misdemeanors, felonies, and statutory CSAM punishments when children are depicted [8] [1] [4].