Law / United States / Ohio
S.B. 163, AI-Generated Content Watermark and Provenance Mandate
A citation is an address, not a summary. The first part names the law; what follows narrows it to the exact section, article or paragraph.
Proposed: draft date not recorded.
Before the second chamber, dated 27 May 2026, as of 12 September 2026.
An AI transparency rule binding private bodies.
As of 6 September 2026.
Where it has got to
The text described here is As Passed by the Senate. That print is 02_PS, published 20 May 2026.
Locally, this stage is House Technology and Innovation Committee.
The stage above is recorded at www.legislature.ohio.gov.
Senate passed SB 163 30-0 on 2026-05-20. Introduced in the House 2026-05-26 and referred to the House Technology and Innovation Committee 2026-05-27; no committee or floor action recorded since. The 136th General Assembly runs through 2026-12-31.
What it requires
- This measure has passed the Senate only and does not yet bind anyone; what follows is what it would require if enacted in its Senate-passed form.
- If you create, code, or otherwise produce a generative AI system publicly accessible to Ohio consumers for personal use, program it to place a distinctive watermark on any image or video it generates, informing the user the content is AI-generated, and to embed provenance data in content it creates.
- Do not knowingly and with intent to deceive a third party remove a required watermark, or knowingly distribute content fully generated by a generative AI system with false information about its authenticity.
- A business-to-business use of a generative AI system for an otherwise lawful purpose would fall outside this measure.
If you get it wrong
Private right of actionYes
Penalty structure
As passed by the Senate, the Attorney General could seek a civil penalty of up to $10,000 specifically for a violation of the watermark-removal ban; the false-authenticity-distribution ban carries injunctive relief and the conditional private civil action described in the summary, but no separately stated civil penalty. Not yet enacted.
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- 6 September 2026
- Currency
- USD
- Fixed cap
- 10,000
What it reaches
Obligation class
Content labelling, Disclosure
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
This measure has passed the Ohio Senate but not the House, and binds nobody yet; what follows is what it would require if enacted in its Senate-passed form.
A "covered provider," a person or entity that creates, codes, or otherwise produces a generative AI system publicly accessible to Ohio consumers for personal use, would have to program the system to place a distinctive watermark on any image or video it generates that informs the user the content was AI-generated, and to embed provenance data in content the system creates; business-to-business use of a generative AI system for an otherwise lawful purpose is excluded.
It would be a violation, done knowingly and with intent to deceive a third party, to remove a required watermark or to distribute content fully generated by a generative AI system with false information about its authenticity. A person aggrieved by such a violation could bring a civil action for damages, but only after first filing a complaint with the Attorney General and the Attorney General not filing its own action within six months.
The Attorney General could separately seek injunctive relief for a violation of the watermark or false-authenticity bans, and a civil penalty of up to $10,000 specifically for a violation of the watermark-removal ban.
When LexLint raises it
generates_content
Read the law
bill text as passed by the Ohio Senate, Ohio Legislature (not yet enacted)