U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), who serves as Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has introduced an amendment to the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) targeting nonconsensual, sexually-explicit “deepfake” images and videos. The proposed measure would establish a federal civil cause of action, enabling victims to sue those who create, distribute, possess, or solicit these digital forgeries without consent. This amendment draws from Durbin’s bipartisan DEFIANCE Act, which was unanimously approved by the Senate in July.
“No one should have their privacy and autonomy violated by someone else generating explicit AI-generated content,” said Durbin. “While the imagery may be fake, the harm to victims, who are often women and girls, is very real. I’m introducing an amendment to the NDAA to give power back to survivors and to crack down on the production, distribution, and possession of explicit ‘deepfake’ images.”
Amendment #2992 can be accessed online.
The amount of deepfake material available on the internet has been rising rapidly due to easier access to technology that creates such content. Most of this material is sexually explicit and made without consent from those depicted. Research from 2019 indicated that nearly all—96 percent—of deepfake videos involved nonconsensual pornography.
According to one researcher, since 2019 there has been a ninefold increase in nonconsensual pornographic deepfake videos online. These videos have accumulated almost four billion views in total. Between July 2020 and July 2023, monthly visits to the top 20 deepfake sites grew by 285 percent. In July 2023 alone, search engines directed over 25 million visits to the five most popular deepfake sites.
