Law / United States / 
Washington
AI content provenance and disclosure act
E2SHB 1170, ch. 167, Laws of 2026 (new chapter, Title 19 RCW)
A citation is an address, not a summary. The first part names the law; what follows narrows it to the exact section, article or paragraph.
What follows is LexLint's own research summary of this law, not legal advice.
In force in 131 days, effective 1 February 2027.
An AI transparency rule binding private bodies.
As of 6 September 2026.
What it requires
- This law is enacted but does not take effect until 2027-02-01; what follows applies from that date.
- If your generative AI system has over 1,000,000 monthly Washington visitors or users, offer users the option to add a manifest disclosure identifying AI-generated image, video, or audio content as such, that is clear, conspicuous, and difficult to remove.
- Separately, embed a latent, system-readable disclosure in the AI-generated image, video, or audio content itself, conveying your name, the generating system and version, and the content's creation date, and make it detectable by a free, public AI-detection tool you provide.
- If you license your generative AI system to a third party, require by contract that the licensee preserve this disclosure capability.
- A violation is treated as an unfair or deceptive act under the Consumer Protection Act rather than punished under a separate penalty scheme.
What it reaches
How the hook was established
express
What makes it apply
Market targeting, Place of effect
What it makes you log
Log retention
The prohibition covers the detection tool the act requires, not the latent disclosure embedded in generated content itself.
- As of
- 21 September 2026
- Basis
- Purpose bound
- Prohibits retaining
- Personal information collected from a user of the artificial intelligence detection tool, beyond the contact information of a user who opts in to being contacted after submitting feedback; any personal provenance data detected in content submitted to the tool; and content submitted to the tool for longer than necessary to comply with the section creating the tool.
Logging duty
The act requires a manifest, user-facing disclosure and a latent, machine-readable disclosure embedded in the AI-generated content itself, plus a public detection tool that reads embedded provenance data back out. It states no duty for the covered provider to create, keep, or later produce a separate record of a disclosure once the content carries it.
- Kind
- None
- As of
- 21 September 2026
Who checks it
Audit expectation
none
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
This law is enacted but does not take effect until February 1, 2027; what follows applies from that date.
A 'covered provider,' a person that creates, codes, or otherwise produces a generative AI system with over 1,000,000 monthly visitors or users publicly accessible in Washington, must offer users an optional, difficult-to-remove manifest disclosure identifying AI-generated image, video, or audio content as such, and must separately embed a latent (system-readable) disclosure in AI-generated image, video, or audio content conveying the provider's name, the generating system and version, and the content's creation date, detectable by the provider's own free public AI-detection tool.
A covered provider that licenses its generative AI system must require by contract that the licensee preserve this disclosure capability. A violation is enforced as an unfair or deceptive act under the Consumer Protection Act, chapter 19.86 RCW. The bill's introduced text also proposed a disclosure duty for a government agency using AI to interact with consumers; that duty is not confirmed against the final chaptered text and is not described further here.
When LexLint raises it
generates_content
Read the law
introduced bill text and bill history, Washington State Legislature (app.leg.wa.gov)
the final chaptered text of the 2nd engrossed substitute was not independently read, so provisions added or removed by amendment beyond what the introduced text and bill history confirm are not described here
Every line above is drawn from the primary source linked here, read on the date shown. This is a research summary, not legal advice.