It’s now illegal to share deepfake photos and videos of people without their consent in Virginia after a new amendment to a law came into effect. The law, which was originally introduced in 2014, only covered revenge porn but was updated to include the digital trickery known as deepfakes where someone’s face is digitally attached to another body.
The law passed through Virginia’s General Assembly in March and was signed into law by the state’s governor, Ralph Northam in the same month. While the state is one of the first places to put such a law into effect, other places are hot on Virginia’s heels to introduce their own anti-deepfake laws.
In the United States, Representative Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) introduced a bill to the House on June 24 which would “defend each and every person from false appearances”; if the law was passed, offenders would face fines, imprisonment, or both. Across the Atlantic in the U.K., the government is looking to introduce laws to tackle revenge porn and as part of this is reviewing digital trends including deepfakes.
Deepfakes have been around a while now and have the potential to cause major headaches for different groups of people. While the laws above talk about revenge porn, deepfakes can also be employed to put words in other people’s mouths, such as politicians, with that said, some efforts are more convincing than others.
Source: Ars Technica