Deepfakes; candidate disclosure requirement and civil penalty

Within ninety days before an election at which a candidate appears on the ballot, a creator, meaning any person who uses artificial intelligence or other digital technology to generate synthetic media, other than a provider of the underlying technology, may not create and distribute a deceptive and fraudulent deepfake of that candidate, meaning synthetic media the creator knows is false and intends to injure the candidate's reputation and that is intentionally calculated to mislead a reasonable person, unless the media carries a clear and conspicuous disclosure that it includes content generated by artificial intelligence.

Satire, parody, and an interactive computer service as defined in 47 U.S.C. § 230 are exempt. A creator who fails to make the required disclosure is liable for the civil penalty prescribed by A.R.S. § 16-937(B) for each day the undisclosed deepfake is distributed. Enacted as chapter 199 of the 2024 session laws, this section was approved by the Governor on May 29, 2024.

Unlike its companion section 16-1023, it carries a severability clause rather than an emergency clause, so it took effect on the legislative session's general effective date under the Arizona Constitution rather than immediately on signature; that specific day is not confirmed against a primary source here, though the section has been in force well before the date shown regardless of which 2024 general effective date applies.