South Dakota Enacts New Anti-Deepfake Law
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On March 25th, South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden signed a new bill into law to regulate AI deepfakes in elections.
We are continuing to see broad bipartisan support for this legislation with Republicans and Democrats alike leading on these bills, and with strong majorities passing these bills in both red and blue states.
While the federal government has slow-walked federal action to protect elections from generative AI deepfakes, state progress on this issue over the past two legislative sessions has been extremely rapid. Going into this legislative session, 21 states had election deepfake laws already enacted, according to Public Citizen’s tracker of state legislation on this issue. Since the legislative session started, 28 states have introduced new election deepfake legislation (including some states that have already enacted laws on the subject). Three other states — Kentucky, Virginia, and North Dakota — have passed election deepfake legislation through both chambers of their state legislatures this year.
South Dakota State Senate Minority Leader, Liz Larson, the prime sponsor of the newly enacted legislation, stated:
“We are proud to be putting Artificial Intelligence in South Dakota’s official code for the first time. As this technology swiftly evolves, we now have something to build on in future years as AI becomes more integrated into our lives, how we study and how we do business. This is a great start for South Dakota.”
Ilana Beller, a democracy advocate with Public Citizen, added:
“AI deepfakes are a serious and rapidly evolving threat to American election security. State legislators are transcending partisanship to safeguard democracy by addressing this issue head-on — providing an example that their federal counterparts would do well to emulate.”
To learn more about Public Citizen’s work to regulate AI deepfakes, see our state bills tracker (updated regularly) or visit www.citizen.org/ai.