The Utah House on Tuesday passed legislation making the use of counterfeit explicit images for extortion purposes a felony offense.
The Utah bill aligns with federal efforts to combat AI-generated explicit content.
“When we added the extortion statue for intimate images, we didn’t contemplate someone making fake ones and using those,” Rep. Ryan Wilcox, R-Ogden, who sponsored the bill, said in his introduction. “So this adds counterfeit intimate images to that extortion statue.”
The House passed HB13 with no debate. Now it moves onto the Senate for approval.
A growing, AI-generated threat
The amendment responds to rising concerns about AI-generated explicit content. Last January, Taylor Swift became the focal point of the issue when deepfaked sexual images featuring her circulated the web, per CNN.
The last year has seen an explosion in similar cases. Sixty Pennsylvanians, mainly female students under the age of 18 at a private school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, were the subject of an AI-generated nude image case that began in November 2024.
Parents and students reported fears that such images could harm future romantic relationships, job searches and even college application, according to Fortune.
Utah’s bill aligns with federal efforts to combat AI-generated explicit content.
The U.S. Senate recently passed bipartisan legislation targeting AI revenge porn, with Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., leading the initiative.
What the new bill can do
Under HB13, creating or threatening to distribute AI-generated explicit images for extortion would carry penalties equivalent to those for authentic images.
If passed, HB13 will take effect on May 7.