FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

September 21, 2023

MEDIA CONTACT: 

e: brian.phillips@mail.house.gov

c: 202.913.0126

Washington, D.C. — Today, Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke (D-NY) and Congressman Glenn Ivey (D-MD) introduced the DEEPFAKES Accountability Act of 2023 to require creators to digitally watermark deepfake content. This legislation would also make it a crime to fail to identify malicious deepfakes, including deepfakes depicting sexual content, related to criminal conduct, used to incite violence, and related to foreign interference in an election. 

“Misinformation and disinformation from domestic extremists and foreign actors continue to pose a serious threat to our democracy and national security. With few laws to manage the spread of the technology, we stand at the precipice of a new era of disinformation warfare, aided by the use of new A.I. tools,” said Congresswoman Clarke. “It’s imperative that Congress not only establishes a clear standard for identifying deepfakes but also provides prosecutors, regulators, and especially victims with the necessary tools to combat fake or manipulated content. I’m proud to introduce this commonsense solution to help protect the American people and our democracy.”

“I support legislation which will create strong security measures to prevent deep fakes from becoming more easily created and used by fraudsters. CBC First Chair Yvette Clarke’s bill puts into place safeguards to do just that. As we work to promote new technologies which will help the U.S. to keep its cutting edge in artificial intelligence and machine learning we must be very careful with our legislative language and intent. Together with our technology savvy institutions of higher learning, the intelligence community and the business sector, government must keep a vigilant eye on privacy concerns yet open to new developments in AI to grow our economy and research capabilities,” said Congressman Glenn Ivey.

The bill was originally introduced in the 116th Congress to provide a pathway for victims of deepfake porn to seek justice. Since then, there have been significant advances in deepfake creation and detection technology, as well as digital content provenance. 

Notably, the bill includes exceptions for other types of disclosures, parodies, satire, consensual deepfakes, and other types of fictionalized content. 

The bill has been updated to recognize the advances in deepfake detection technology and digital content provenance technology. It also includes new provisions to establish an information sharing program to prevent the spread of malicious deepfakes, obligations on social media platforms to include technical capabilities to host content credentials, and requirements around deepfake detection on social media.

Read the full bill text here.

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