DEFIANCE Act of 2025
Key claim: The DEFIANCE Act of 2025 expands civil remedies for nonconsensual intimate-image disclosure and establishes a new federal civil action for knowingly producing, disclosing, possessing with intent to disclose, or soliciting intimate digital forgeries (AI deepfakes) without consent.
Abstract
(HR3562 · 119th Congress) Disrupt Explicit Forged Images And Non-Consensual Edits Act of 2025 or the DEFIANCE Act of 2025 This bill expands civil remedies for the nonconsensual disclosure of intimate images (i.e., nonconsensual pornography). The bill also establishes a new federal civil action for nonconsensual conduct involving intimate digital forgeries (i.e., deepfakes). The term intimate digital forgery means any intimate visual depiction of an identifiable individual created using software, machine learning, artificial intelligence, or other computer-generated or technological means that looks authentic. With respect to the nonconsensual disclosure of intimate images, current law allows an identifiable individual to recover civil remedies, including litigation costs, damages, and injunctive relief. This bill increases the available damages by allowing the individual to recover punitive damages and by including, as part of actual damages, profits of the defendant that are attributable to the conduct at issue. The bill also allows an identifiable individual who is the subject of an intimate digital forgery to file a federal civil action against anyone who knowingly discloses, produces or possesses with intent to disclose, or solicits and receives the intimate digital forgery without the individual’s consent. Under the bill, the identifiable individual may recover the same expanded civil remedies that are available for the nonconsensual disclosure of intimate images. Finally, the bill establishes a 10-year statute of limitations for filing civil actions involving nonconsensual intimate digital forgeries or nonconsensual disclosure of intimate images. The statute begins to run when the individual discovers the violation or turns 18, whichever is later. Latest action (2025-05-21): Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Why this matters
For survivors of image-based sexual abuse, the DEFIANCE Act would open a federal civil forum with meaningful damages (including punitive and disgorgement of profits) against creators, distributors, and solicitors of AI-generated intimate deepfakes — a category of harm that has grown faster than state tort and criminal law can adapt. It sits alongside the broader NO FAKES Act as one of two main federal legislative responses to generative-AI likeness harms, and its passage or non-passage will shape whether victims have consistent nationwide recourse or continue to depend on a patchwork of state laws. Contested questions include the scope of First Amendment defenses, treatment of platforms and intermediaries, and interaction with parallel criminal statutes.