Law / United States / 
North Dakota
House Bill 1351 (2025), sexually expressive images including AI-generated or altered deepfakes
N.D. Cent. Code § 12.1-27.1-03.3
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 surreptitiously create or knowingly possess a sexually expressive image, whether real, altered, or computer-generated, of an identifiable individual without that individual's written consent.
- Do not distribute or publish a sexually expressive image, including a computer-generated or AI-altered one, with intent to cause emotional harm or humiliation, or after the depicted individual or their parent or guardian has told you they do not consent.
- A depicted individual harmed by a violation of this section committed for sexual arousal, gratification, humiliation, degradation, or monetary or commercial gain may sue for damages, including statutory damages of up to ten thousand dollars per defendant, plus attorney fees and injunctive relief.
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
- 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
- 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
Private right of actionYes
Criminal exposure note
Surreptitious creation or possession without consent, or distribution with intent to harm or after notice of non-consent, is a class A misdemeanor; acquiring and knowingly distributing an image created without the subject's consent is a class B misdemeanor. The section states these classifications only; it does not itself state a dollar fine or a term of imprisonment.
Statutory damages
A prevailing plaintiff recovers the greater of actual damages (economic and noneconomic, including emotional distress) or statutory damages not to exceed ten thousand dollars against each defendant found liable. The ten thousand dollars is a ceiling on the statutory alternative, not a floor or a fixed sum per person; the monetary gain from the image and exemplary damages are recoverable in addition.
- As of
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
A depicted individual who is identifiable and harmed enforces the civil action in subsection 6; the section creates class A and class B misdemeanors and names no agency or prosecutor.
Settledness
- As of
- Open questions
- Does "surreptitiously creates" in N.D. Cent. Code § 12.1-27.1-03.3(1)(a), a term the chapter does not define, reach a person who generates a computer-generated sexually expressive image of an identifiable individual with software, without that individual's knowledge?
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Section 12.1-27.1-03.3 creates the criminal offenses and the civil cause of action; Section 12.1-27.1-01 supplies the definitions. Neither requires a log, record, or documentation of any kind.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
House Bill 1351 amended the definition of 'sexually expressive image' at N.D. Cent. Code § 12.1-27.1-01(13) to cover a real, altered, or computer-generated photograph or visual representation exhibiting a nude or partially denuded human figure or sexual conduct, reaching an AI-generated or AI-altered deepfake alongside a real photograph.
Under the operative prohibition, § 12.1-27.1-03.3, a person is guilty of a class A misdemeanor for surreptitiously creating or willfully possessing such an image of an identifiable individual without that individual's written consent, or for distributing or publishing one with intent to cause emotional harm or humiliation, or after being told by the depicted individual or their parent or guardian that they do not consent; a person is guilty of a class B misdemeanor for acquiring and knowingly distributing such an image created without the subject's consent.
A depicted individual identifiable in the image and harmed by a violation committed for sexual arousal, gratification, humiliation, degradation, or monetary or commercial gain has a civil cause of action for the greater of actual and emotional-distress damages or statutory damages capped at ten thousand dollars per defendant, plus any monetary gain the defendant made, exemplary damages, and attorney fees.
House Bill 1351 passed both chambers with only one dissenting vote, was signed by the governor on , was filed with the secretary of state , and carried no emergency clause, so it took effect under North Dakota's default effective-date rule.
When LexLint raises it
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