Wisconsin

Whoever receives, distributes, produces, or possesses, or accesses in any way with the intent to view, obscene material that contains a depiction of a purported child engaging in sexually explicit conduct is guilty of a felony, if the person knows or reasonably should know that the material contains such a depiction.

"Depiction of a purported child" is defined as a visual representation that appears to depict an actual child but may or may not depict an actual child, and "obscene material" is defined to include a digital or computer-generated image or picture satisfying the standard Miller obscenity test (appeals to the prurient interest, is patently offensive under contemporary community standards, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, educational, or scientific value).

Because the depiction need not show a real child, this reaches wholly computer-generated or AI-generated child sexual abuse material with no actual child involved. Created by 2023 Wisconsin Act 224 (2023 Senate Bill 314), enacted March 27, 2024 and published March 28, 2024; because the act does not itself prescribe an effective date, it took effect the day after its publication, March 29, 2024, under the state's general rule for acts enacted without an emergency clause.

A "synthetic intimate representation" is defined as a representation generated using technological means that uses an identifiable person's face, likeness, or other distinguishing characteristic to depict an intimate representation of that person, regardless of whether the representation includes components that are artificial, legally generated, or generally accessible, and that is so realistic that a reasonable person would believe it depicts conduct of the identifiable person; the definition is technology-neutral and reaches an AI-generated or partly AI-generated sexual deepfake.

Posting, publishing, distributing, or exhibiting a synthetic intimate representation of an identifiable person with intent to coerce, harass, or intimidate that person is a Class I felony, except that it is a Class H felony if the depicted person had not attained the age of 18 at the time of the violation.

The same act separately created a reproduction offense at subsection (3m)(a)3, making it a Class A misdemeanor (Class I felony if the depicted person was a minor) to make a reproduction of a private representation knowing the depicted person did not consent to the reproduction; that provision is not limited to synthetic or AI-generated content on its own terms.

Created by 2025 Wisconsin Act 34 (2025 Senate Bill 33), enacted October 2, 2025 and published October 3, 2025; the act does not carry a distinct effective-date clause of its own, so it took effect the day after publication, October 4, 2025, under the state's general rule for acts of the legislature enacted without an emergency clause.

Every audio communication containing express advocacy, issue advocacy, or support of or opposition to a referendum that contains synthetic media, meaning audio or video content substantially produced in whole or in part by generative artificial intelligence, must include the words "Contains content generated by AI" both at the beginning and at the end of the communication.

Every covered video communication must include, throughout the duration of each portion containing synthetic media, a readable, legible, and readily accessible on-screen disclosure reading "This video content generated by AI," "This audio content generated by AI," or "This content generated by AI," depending on which kind of synthetic media is present.

Compliance does not exempt a person from other civil or criminal liability, including under Wisconsin's separate false political-communication statute, and the provision expressly preserves the immunities of an interactive computer service provider under 47 U.S.C. 230. A broadcaster or other host or carrier of a covered communication is not liable for a violation unless it is itself the committee responsible for the communication.

Created by 2023 Wisconsin Act 123 (2023 Assembly Bill 664), enacted March 21, 2024 and published March 22, 2024; because the act does not itself prescribe an effective date, it took effect the day after its publication, March 23, 2024, under the state's general rule for acts enacted without an emergency clause.

An entity whose principal place of business is in Wisconsin, or that maintains or licenses personal information in Wisconsin, that knows personal information in its possession has been acquired by an unauthorized person must make reasonable efforts to notify each affected individual within a reasonable time, not to exceed 45 days after learning of the acquisition.

Personal information includes an individual's name combined with, among other elements, a Social Security number, a DNA profile, or unique biometric data such as a fingerprint, voiceprint, or retina or iris image, each on the same footing as the others, with no exclusion anywhere in the section for an identifier derived from a photograph, video, or audio recording. If a single incident requires notifying 1,000 or more individuals, the entity must also notify consumer reporting agencies.

Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)-compliant and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-covered entities are exempt outright. The statute's own official annotation states directly that the section does not create a private right of action, citing Fox v. Iowa Health System, 399 F. Supp. 3d 780 (2019).

No separate civil-penalty or forfeiture amount specific to a section 134.98 violation appears within the section itself; Wis. Stat. sec. 134.99 addresses only accomplice or conspirator liability for a chapter violation carrying a forfeiture, without stating the amount or who may bring the action, and the underlying enforcement mechanism is not traced further here into Wisconsin's general consumer-protection authority under chs. 93 or 100.

Subsection (2) makes it a crime for any person, willfully, knowingly, and without authorization, to modify, destroy, access, take possession of, or copy data, computer programs, or supporting documentation, or to disclose restricted access codes or other restricted access information to unauthorized persons; a separate paragraph, (2)(am), criminalizes intentionally causing an interruption in service by submitting a message or messages that exceed a computer, program, system, or network's processing capacity.

Subsection (3) parallels this for the underlying computer, computer equipment, or supplies themselves.

"Access" is defined broadly in subsection (1)(ag) to mean to instruct, communicate with, interact with, intercept, store data in, retrieve data from, or otherwise use the resources of a computer, which reaches ordinary automated retrieval; but because a violation additionally requires acting willfully, knowingly, and without authorization, ordinary access to a public, unauthenticated page that performs none of the statute's listed acts does not fit its elements.

No Wisconsin case has applied this statute to a scraping or automated-collection fact pattern specifically.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has construed subsection (2)(a)6's phrase "access codes or other restricted access information" narrowly: it refers to the codes, passwords, or other information that permits access to a system or to programs or data within it, not to the system, program, or data accessed, and the statute was not meant to criminalize disclosure of information obtained with authorization in the first instance (Burbank Grease Services, LLC v. Sokolowski, 2006 WI 103, 294 Wis. 2d 274, 717 N.W.2d 781).

A Wisconsin appellate decision has separately held that the statute is constitutional and that federal copyright law does not preempt a prosecution under it for destroying data entered into a computer program (State v. Corcoran, 186 Wis. 2d 616, 522 N.W.2d 226 (Ct. App. 1994)).

The section was created by 1981 Wisconsin Act 293 and has been amended several times since, most recently by 2015 Wisconsin Act 300, which amended the definition of "property" at subsection (1)(h) to include digital property as defined elsewhere in the statutes; the 1981 enacting act's own text, as read, does not carry the commencement-date notation that Wisconsin's modern act pages include, so a specific day of first commencement is not confirmed here even though the statute has plainly been in continuous force for decades.