SIIA joins 16 organizations in urging Congress to pass the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (DEFIANCE) Act (S.3696), which would establish a federal civil remedy for victims of synthetic non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII). With unanimous Senate approval, this legislation represents a critical step toward protecting individuals from the escalating abuse of AI technology to create and distribute explicit, non-consensual content. As incidents of synthetic NCII rise—impacting not only adults but also children in schools—the DEFIANCE Act offers a necessary tool to hold perpetrators accountable and restore agency to victims.
The technology enabling synthetic NCII allows bad actors to generate intimate images from ordinary photos in seconds, causing devastating harm to victims’ privacy, mental health, and reputations. By clarifying existing Violence Against Women Act provisions to include AI-generated images, the DEFIANCE Act provides a framework for justice. SIIA and its coalition partners urge House leadership to act swiftly during the lame-duck session, emphasizing that every day of delay means more lives disrupted by this form of exploitation.
