Law / United States / Ohio

S.B. 163, AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material and Nonconsensual Replica Prohibitions

Ohio Rev. Code §§ 2907.321 2907.322, 2907.323, and 2913.49, as proposed to be amended by S.B. 163, 136th General Assembly (2025-2026 Session)

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 prohibited practices rule binding public and 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.

What it requires

This measure has passed the Senate only and does not yet bind anyone; what follows is what it would prohibit if enacted in its Senate-passed form.
Do not create, reproduce, publish, sell, disseminate, or possess material showing a minor, a computer-generated or artificially generated depiction of a minor, or a depiction of a purported minor engaged in the prohibited conduct; this would reach material with no real child involved at all.
Do not create or use a nonconsensual AI-generated replica of a real person's voice, image, or likeness to induce a financial decision or extend credit, or to damage that person's or an entity's reputation.
Do not create, use, or disseminate a nonconsensual AI-generated replica of a real person, who is not a minor or impaired person, depicting them in a state of nudity, engaging in sexual activity, or in other obscene material.
Providing or developing the underlying AI technology used to create a replica would not itself violate this measure unless the provider or developer is the one committing the violation.

If you get it wrong

Criminal exposureYes

Criminal exposure note

As passed by the Senate, the amendment leaves the existing felony-degree structure for §§ 2907.321 to .323 unchanged: if the offense involves a minor or a depiction of a purported minor, the principal offenses under each section are a felony of the second degree (imprisonment two to eight years or more depending on the specific section, fine of not more than $15,000); if the offense involves an impaired person, a felony of the third degree (fine of not more than $10,000); simple possession is typically a felony of the fourth or fifth degree (fine of not more than $5,000 or $2,500), escalating on a prior conviction. Section 2913.49's own penalty division, unchanged in structure by this bill, separately governs the new replica prohibitions along with the rest of the section: identity fraud is a felony of the fifth degree by default (fine of not more than $2,500), rising with the value of the credit, property, services, debt, or other obligation involved to a felony of the fourth degree at $1,000 or more, a felony of the third degree at $7,500 or more, and a felony of the second degree at $150,000 or more (fine of not more than $15,000); where the victim is a minor, an elderly person, a disabled adult, or an active-duty service member or their spouse, each threshold instead produces a felony one degree higher, up to a felony of the first degree at $150,000 or more in value (fine of not more than $20,000).

Penalty structure

The $20,000 figure is the maximum fine for a felony of the first degree, the ceiling that applies to identity fraud, including the new replica prohibitions added to § 2913.49, against a protected-class victim (a minor, an elderly person, a disabled adult, or an active-duty service member or their spouse) where the value involved is $150,000 or more. The CSAM-related felony degrees and their fine ceilings are unchanged from current law: $15,000 for a felony of the second degree (an offense involving a minor or a depiction of a purported minor under §§ 2907.321 or 2907.322), down to $2,500 for a felony of the fifth degree (simple possession under § 2907.323). Fine amounts are set generally for all Ohio felonies at R.C. 2929.18(A)(3), not within these sections themselves.

Rule: Fixed only
As of: 6 September 2026
Currency: USD
Fixed cap: 20,000

What it reaches

Obligation class

Prohibition

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 prohibit if enacted in its Senate-passed form. Ohio's child-exploitation statutes currently reach only material showing an actual minor.

As passed by the Senate, §§ 2907.321 to .323 would be amended to add a computer-generated or artificially generated depiction of a minor, and to add a "depiction of a purported minor," defined as a visual representation that appears to depict an actual minor that a reasonable person would believe depicts or represents an actual minor, but that may or may not actually depict a real child; this would reach material generated entirely by artificial intelligence with no real child involved at all, without changing the existing felony-degree structure for these offenses.

Separately, § 2913.49 (Ohio's identity-fraud statute) would be amended to add a "replica of a person's persona," a modified or fabricated version of an individual's voice, photograph, image, likeness, or distinctive appearance created or presented so that it appears to be the individual's authentic persona, including one produced in whole or in part by a generative AI system; new prohibitions would bar creating or using such a replica, without the depicted person's consent, to induce a financial decision or extend credit, to damage a person's or entity's reputation, or, where the depicted person is not a minor or impaired person, to depict them in nudity, sexual activity, or other obscene material.

The bill does not extend a civil action of its own to the new financial-inducement or reputational-harm replica prohibitions: the existing civil action for persons injured by a criminal act (R.C. 2307.60) remains available only for a violation of the identity-theft provisions in divisions (B), (D), or (E) of the amended section, which already reach a replica used with intent to defraud, and the new civil action added by this measure (R.C. 2307.66) reaches only the nonconsensual sexual or nude replica prohibition. The provider or developer of the underlying AI technology is excluded unless it is itself the violator.

When LexLint raises it

generates_content
publishes_adult_content
processes_voice

Read the law

bill text as passed by the Ohio Senate, Ohio Legislature (not yet enacted)

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