Law / United States / 
Iowa
Sexual exploitation of a minor, AI-generated and manipulated depictions
In force since .
An AI prohibited practices rule binding public and private bodies.
- Enforcement body
- criminal prosecution under Iowa's criminal code
- Obligation class
- Prohibition
- Audit expectation
- none
- Setting the rule reaches
- General
What it requires
- Do not purchase, possess or knowingly promote a visual depiction created, adapted or modified to give the appearance that an identifiable minor is engaged in a prohibited sexual act, including an AI-generated or digitally manipulated depiction.
- The offense does not require proof of the actual identity of the depicted minor, and it binds any person, not only an AI developer or platform.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
In the frameworks
- NIST AI RMF
- MAP 3.3Targeted application scope is specified and documented based on the system’s capability, established context, and AI system categorization.
- NIST AI 600-1
- GAI-RISK-08Information Integrity
- GAI-RISK-11Obscene, Degrading, and/or Abusive Content
- MIT mitigations Draft
- FINOS AIGF
- AIR-PREV-005System Acceptance Testing
- ETSI EN 304 223
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
Identifiers refer to ETSI EN 304 223 V2.1.1 (2025-12), © ETSI 2025, all rights reserved. ETSI owns the standard; no ETSI text (titles or sentences) is reproduced here. The standard is free to download from ETSI.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Criminal exposure note
Purchasing or possessing a prohibited visual depiction of a minor, including one created, adapted, or modified to depict an identifiable minor, is a class D felony for a first offense and a class C felony for a second or subsequent offense. Knowingly promoting such material is a class C felony. Employing, using, persuading, inducing, enticing, coercing, or soliciting a minor to engage in a prohibited sexual act, or the simulation of one, is a class B felony, and the court may assess a fine of up to fifty thousand dollars for each offense in addition to any other sentence.
What it makes you log
Logging duty
This is a criminal offense definition. It states no duty for anyone to create, keep, or produce a log or record of anything.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Iowa's sexual-exploitation-of-a-minor offense reaches a visual depiction that has been created, adapted, or modified to give the appearance that an identifiable minor is engaged in a prohibited sexual act, which extends the offense to AI-generated and digitally manipulated depictions and does not require proof of the actual identity of the depicted minor.
Purchasing or possessing such a depiction is a class D felony for a first offense and a class C felony for a second or subsequent offense; knowingly promoting one is a class C felony; employing, using, or causing a minor to engage in the underlying act is a class B felony, with a court-imposable fine of up to fifty thousand dollars per offense in addition to any other sentence. The provision binds any person and is not limited to an AI developer or platform.
The AI-generated and manipulated depiction language, paragraph f, was added by 2024 Iowa Acts, chapter 1015 (Senate File 2243), section 1, whose effective date the Iowa Legislature's own bill history record states as .
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app generates images with AI, generates video with AI or publishes adult content.
Back to the example · Lint your app
Page updated .