AI tools now make it trivially easy to generate sexualized images of real people without their knowledge or consent. People have discovered that images of them, paired with fabricated explicit content, are being circulated online. And a growing category of AI products has been specifically built to generate this content at scale, with features that go far beyond what Act 125 of 2024 was meant to address. We know these harms fall disproportionately on women, on girls, on people being stalked or harassed, and on individuals with public profiles who cannot prevent their likenesses from being used as source material.

Act 125 addressed the circulation of nonconsensual intimate digital depictions. This bill builds on that foundation by addressing the creation of this content without the consent of the person depicted. It would make it illegal to knowingly create, generate, threaten to generate, or solicit the creation of an artificially generated sexual depiction of an identifiable individual without that person's consent. It would also expand the civil cause of action to cover creation in addition to dissemination, strengthen the civil damages floor, and establish a limitations period tied to discovery, because victims often don't learn about this violation until after it occurred.

Under this bill, a developer or provider of technology can claim safe harbor from liability, but only if they have implemented the safeguards required to prevent their product from being used this way. A simple update to their terms of service agreement does not satisfy those requirements.

Pennsylvania legislators across the aisle have supported protecting people from having their likenesses used against them. Let’s build on that bipartisan work and ensure victims of nonconsensual intimate digital depictions have meaningful recourse. I ask my colleagues to join me in co-sponsoring this bill.