Inslee signs bill creating criminal penalties for distribution of AI fabricated intimate images

Before sexually explicit deepfake images of Taylor Swift circulated on the internet in late January, Issaquah High School students already had fallen victim to nude photos digitally altered by artificial intelligence.

During Caroline Mullet’s first homecoming dance in September 2023, a ninth-grade boy photographed her female friends and used AI to make the students appear nude. He then sent the photos around to other students and laughed about it, Mullet said.

The daughter of Mark Mullet, a state senator from Issaquah who is running for governor, shared this story on behalf of her friends before lawmakers on Jan 16. She was testifying in support of a bill proposing criminal penalties for distributing digitally altered sexually explicit images or videos featuring identifiable minors.

Gov. Jay Inslee signed that bill into law on Thursday, with Mullet and her father by his side.

“I hate the idea that I should have to worry about this happening again to any of my female friends, my sisters or even myself,” she said before the House Community Safety, Justice and Reentry Committee.

The bill unanimously passed the House and Senate during the 2024 legislative session.

Before this year’s legislation is enacted, existing state law only prohibits the sharing of sexually explicit content involving minors. However, it lacks language addressing the modification or fabrication of such images by superimposing a real person’s face onto them.

The new law taking effect in early June and will do three main things:

• It expands existing child pornography laws to classify creating, possessing, distributing or viewing deepfake sexually explicit images of minors as unlawful.
• It introduces a new criminal offense called “Disclosing Fabricated Intimate Images,” which targets people who knowingly share digitally altered intimate pictures of others without their permission, punishable as a gross misdemeanor for first-time offenders and an unranked class C felony for repeat offenders.
• It allows victims to sue people who share fabricated sexual content without their consent under the Uniform Civil Remedies for the Unauthorized Disclosure of Intimate Images Act.

“This means we’re sending a strong message that this is not acceptable, that this harms people, and that there’s a path for justice for people that are hurt by the release of these images, which are often fabricated,” prime sponsor Rep. Tina Orwall, D-Des Moines, said.

Orwall has been working to strengthen protections against intimate images since 2019, though it wasn’t until this year that she proposed the idea of expanding restrictionsvagainst fabricated images.

“I think of all the young adults who are on social media all the time and just how much harm can be done,” Orwall said, adding that she “felt really excited” when the bill was signed into law.

Deepfake technology, a way to digitally alter photos or videos to appear real, first appeared in late 2017. Sensity AI, a research company that has tracked online deepfake videos since 2019, found that between 90% and 95% of those videos online are pornographic, with the majority depicting women.

In the rapid expansion of AI, the Legislature also recently adopted Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s recommendation for a statewide Artificial Intelligence Task Force. The task force will collaborate with technology experts and labor organizations to study AI and make recommendations to the Legislature.