I 
119TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 3562 
To improve rights to relief for individuals affected by non-consensual activities 
involving intimate digital forgeries, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MAY 21, 2025 
Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ (for herself, Ms. LEE of Florida, Mrs. CAMMACK, Mr. 
DELUZIO, Mrs. DINGELL, Mr. LAWLER, Mr. LIEU, Ms. MACE, Mr. MIL-
LER of Ohio, Mr. RASKIN, Ms. PETTERSEN, and Mr. VAN DREW) intro-
duced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Ju-
diciary 
A BILL 
To improve rights to relief for individuals affected by non- 
consensual activities involving intimate digital forgeries, 
and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Disrupt Explicit 
Forged Images And Non-Consensual Edits Act of 2025’’ 
or the ‘‘DEFIANCE Act of 2025’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
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(1) Digital forgeries, often called deepfakes, are 
synthetic images and videos that look realistic. The 
technology to create digital forgeries is now ubiq-
uitous and easy to use. Hundreds of apps are avail-
able that can quickly generate digital forgeries with-
out the need for any technical expertise. 
(2) Digital forgeries can be wholly fictitious but 
can also manipulate images of real people to depict 
sexually intimate conduct that did not occur. For ex-
ample, some digital forgeries will paste the face of 
an individual onto the body of a real or fictitious in-
dividual who is nude or who is engaging in sexual 
activity. Another example is a photograph of an indi-
vidual that is manipulated to digitally remove the 
clothing of the individual so that the person appears 
to be nude. 
(3) The individuals depicted in such digital for-
geries are profoundly harmed when the content is 
produced with intent to disclose, disclosed, or ob-
tained without the consent of those individuals. 
These harms are not mitigated through labels or 
other information that indicates that the depiction is 
fake. 
(4) It can be destabilizing to victims whenever 
those victims are depicted in intimate digital for-
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geries against their will, as the privacy of those vic-
tims is violated and the victims lose control over 
their likeness and identity. 
(5) Victims can feel helpless because the vic-
tims— 
(A) may not be able to determine who has 
created the content; and 
(B) do not know how to prevent further 
disclosure of the intimate digital forgery or how 
to prevent more forgeries from being made. 
(6) Victims may be fearful of being in public 
out of concern that individuals the victims encounter 
have seen the digital forgeries. This leads to social 
rupture through the loss of the ability to trust, stig-
matization, and isolation. 
(7) Victims of non-consensual, sexually intimate 
digital forgeries may experience depression, anxiety, 
and suicidal ideation. These victims may also experi-
ence the ‘‘silencing effect’’ in which the victims with-
draw from online spaces and public discourse to 
avoid further abuse. 
(8) Digital forgeries are often used to— 
(A) harass victims, interfering with their 
employment, education, reputation, or sense of 
safety; or 
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(B) commit extortion, sexual assault, do-
mestic violence, and other crimes. 
(9) Because of the harms caused by non-con-
sensual, sexually intimate digital forgeries, such dig-
ital forgeries are considered to be a form of image- 
based sexual abuse. 
SEC. 3. CIVIL ACTION RELATING TO DISCLOSURE OF INTI-
MATE IMAGES. 
(a) DEFINITIONS.—Section 1309 of the Consolidated 
Appropriations Act, 2022 (15 U.S.C. 6851) is amended— 
(1) in the section heading, by inserting ‘‘OR 
NONCONSENSUAL
ACTIVITY
INVOLVING
DIG-
ITAL
FORGERIES’’ after ‘‘INTIMATE
IMAGES’’; 
and 
(2) in subsection (a)— 
(A) in paragraph (2), by inserting ‘‘com-
petent,’’ after ‘‘conscious,’’; 
(B) by striking paragraph (3); 
(C) by redesignating paragraph (4) as 
paragraph (3); 
(D) by redesignating paragraphs (5) and 
(6) as paragraphs (6) and (7), respectively; 
(E) by inserting after paragraph (3) the 
following: 
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‘‘(4) IDENTIFIABLE
INDIVIDUAL.—The term 
‘identifiable individual’ means an individual whose 
body appears in whole or in part in an intimate vis-
ual depiction or intimate digital forgery and who is 
identifiable by virtue of the individual’s face, like-
ness, or other distinguishing characteristic, such as 
a unique birthmark or other recognizable feature, or 
from information displayed in connection with the 
intimate visual depiction or intimate digital forgery. 
‘‘(5) INTIMATE DIGITAL FORGERY.— 
‘‘(A) IN
GENERAL.—The term ‘intimate 
digital forgery’ means any intimate visual depic-
tion of an identifiable individual that— 
‘‘(i) falsely represents, in whole or in 
part— 
‘‘(I) the identifiable individual; or 
‘‘(II) the conduct or content that 
makes the visual depiction intimate; 
‘‘(ii) is created through the use of 
software, machine learning, artificial intel-
ligence, or any other computer-generated 
or technological means, including by adapt-
ing, modifying, manipulating, or altering 
an authentic visual depiction; and 
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‘‘(iii) is indistinguishable from an au-
thentic visual depiction of the identifiable 
individual when viewed as a whole by a 
reasonable person. 
‘‘(B) LABELS, DISCLOSURE, AND
CON-
TEXT.—Any visual depiction described in sub-
paragraph (A) constitutes an intimate digital 
forgery for purposes of this paragraph regard-
less of whether a label, information disclosed 
with the visual depiction, or the context or set-
ting in which the visual depiction is disclosed 
states or implies that the visual depiction is not 
authentic.’’; and 
(F) in paragraph (6)(A), as so redesig-
nated— 
(i) in clause (i), by striking ‘‘or’’ at 
the end; 
(ii) in clause (ii)— 
(I) in subclause (I), by striking 
‘‘individual;’’ 
and 
inserting 
‘‘indi-
vidual; or’’; and 
(II) by striking subclause (III); 
and 
(iii) by adding at the end the fol-
lowing: 
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‘‘(iii) an identifiable individual engag-
ing in sexually explicit conduct; and’’. 
(b) CIVIL ACTION.—Section 1309(b) of the Consoli-
dated Appropriations Act, 2022 (15 U.S.C. 6851(b)) is 
amended— 
(1) in paragraph (1)— 
(A) by striking subparagraph (A) and in-
serting the following: 
‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in 
paragraph (5)— 
‘‘(i) an identifiable individual whose 
intimate visual depiction is disclosed, in or 
affecting interstate or foreign commerce or 
using any means or facility of interstate or 
foreign commerce, without the consent of 
the identifiable individual, where such dis-
closure was made by a person who knows 
or recklessly disregards that the identifi-
able individual has not consented to such 
disclosure, may bring a civil action against 
that person in an appropriate district court 
of the United States for relief as set forth 
in paragraph (3); 
‘‘(ii) an identifiable individual who is 
the subject of an intimate digital forgery 
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may bring a civil action in an appropriate 
district court of the United States for re-
lief as set forth in paragraph (3) against 
any person that knowingly produced or 
possessed the intimate digital forgery with 
intent to disclose it, knowingly disclosed 
the intimate digital forgery, or knowingly 
solicited and received the intimate digital 
forgery, if— 
‘‘(I) the identifiable individual 
did not consent to such production or 
possession with intent to disclose, dis-
closure, or solicitation and receipt; 
‘‘(II) the person knew or reck-
lessly disregarded that the identifiable 
individual did not consent to such pro-
duction or possession with intent to 
disclose, disclosure, or solicitation and 
receipt; and 
‘‘(III) such production or posses-
sion with intent to disclose, disclosure, 
or solicitation and receipt, is in or af-
fects interstate or foreign commerce 
or uses any means or facility of inter-
state or foreign commerce; and 
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