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Law / United States / North Carolina

AI-Generated Intimate Images and Child Sexual Abuse Material (Session Law 2024-37, HB 591)

N.C. Sess. Law 2024-37 (H.B. 591); N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 14-190.5A, 14-190.13

In force since .

An AI prohibited practices rule binding public and private bodies.

Obligation class
Prohibition
Audit expectation
none
Setting the rule reaches
General

What it requires

  • Do not knowingly disclose, without the depicted person's consent, a realistic AI-generated or AI-modified image depicting them nude or engaged in sexual conduct, if you intend to coerce, harass, intimidate, demean, humiliate, or cause financial loss to them.
  • Do not create, adapt, or distribute an AI-generated or AI-modified visual depiction that meets North Carolina's definition of child sexual abuse material; the same offenses that apply to a real photograph apply to a realistic AI-generated depiction of an identifiable minor.
  • A person whose image you disclose in violation of this law can also sue you for liquidated damages of at least the higher of one thousand dollars per day of violation or ten thousand dollars, plus punitive damages and attorneys' fees.

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
MIT mitigations Draft
  • 1.5Safety Decision Frameworks
  • 3.3Access Management
NIST Privacy Framework
  • CT.PO-P1Policies, processes, and procedures for authorizing data processing (e.g., organizational decisions, individual consent), revoking authorizations, and maintaining authorizations are established and in place.
FINOS AIGF
ETSI EN 304 223
  • 5.1.2-1Business need and security risks written down and assessed before deciding to build an AI system.
  • 5.1.4-5End-users told which uses of the system are prohibited.

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

Private right of actionYes

Criminal exposure note

Disclosure of private images under G.S. 14-190.5A is a Class H felony for an offender who is 18 or older. For an offender under 18 it is a Class 1 misdemeanor on a first offense and a Class H felony on a second or later offense.

Statutory damages

The depicted person recovers actual damages but not less than liquidated damages of $1,000 per day for each day of the violation or $10,000, whichever is higher; punitive damages and reasonable attorneys' fees are additional.

As of
Currency
USD
Per person minimum
10,000

Who enforces it

Enforcement body

Criminal prosecution under G.S. 14-190.5A, which names no prosecuting agency; the depicted person enforces the civil action in subsection (g).

Settledness

As of
Open questions
  • Does one online posting of an image run "each day of the violation" for every day it stays available, where G.S. 14-190.5A(g)(1) computes liquidated damages at "one thousand dollars ($1,000) per day"?
  • Does "obtained, created, adapted, or modified the image without consent of the depicted person" in G.S. 14-190.5A(b)(5) reach a person who only redistributes an artificial-intelligence image that another person made?

What it makes you log

Logging duty

G.S. 14-190.5A states the disclosure offense, its penalties, its exceptions, and its civil action; G.S. 14-190.13 supplies definitions shared with the sexual-exploitation-of-a-minor offenses. Neither requires a log, record, or documentation of any kind; subsection (e)'s court-ordered destruction of an image is a post-conviction remedy, not a record-keeping duty.

Kind
None
As of

What this law does

Drafted with AI

Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page. How this site is made

Research summary

Legal information, not legal advice. This is LexLint's own research summary of a public legal source, and it creates no attorney-client relationship. For decisions that matter, consult qualified counsel in the relevant jurisdiction. About LexLint

Session Law 2024-37 (House Bill 591), effective , amended section 14-190.5A, disclosure of private images, and section 14-190.13, the shared definitions section for North Carolina's sexual-exploitation-of-a-minor offenses, so that 'image' and 'material' each include a realistic visual depiction created, adapted, or modified by technological means, including algorithms or artificial intelligence, such that a reasonable person would believe it depicts an identifiable person.

Under section 14-190.5A as amended, a person who knowingly discloses such a depiction of an identifiable adult without consent, with intent to coerce, harass, intimidate, demean, humiliate, or cause financial loss, commits disclosure of private images, a Class H felony for an adult offender, and the depicted person may also bring a civil action for liquidated damages of at least the higher of one thousand dollars per day of violation or ten thousand dollars, plus punitive damages and attorneys' fees.

Section 14-190.13's amended definition of material extends North Carolina's existing first, second, and third degree sexual exploitation of a minor offenses to reach AI-generated child sexual abuse material on the same terms as a photograph, without itself restating those offenses' own penalties.

When LexLint raises it

When your app profile says your app generates images with AI, generates video with AI or publishes adult content.

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