Candidate Voice Fraud Prohibition Act

• Authority: United States Congress
• Parent authority: Federal government
• Jurisdiction: United States
• Collections: U.S. federal laws
• Most recent activity: Defunct
• Most recent activity date: 2025-01-03

Risk subdomain coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the risk subdomain are explicitly described.

• False or misleading information
• Disinformation, surveillance, and influence at scale
• Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation
• Governance failure

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the risk subdomain are described.

• Pollution of information ecosystem
• AI possessing dangerous capabilities
• Lack of transparency or interpretability

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document has good coverage of approximately 5-6 subdomains, with strong focus on malicious actors (4.1, 4.3), misinformation (3.1, 3.2), and governance (6.5). Coverage is concentrated in disinformation, fraud/manipulation, and regulatory oversight domains.

Sector coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the sector are explicitly described.

• Information
• Public Administration (excl. National Security)

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the sector are described.

• Professional & Technical Services
• Arts, Entertainment & Recreation

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

The document primarily governs the Information sector (broadcasting, telecommunications, internet services) and Public Administration (electoral processes). It also has minimal coverage of Professional and Technical Services through references to political consultants and campaign entities.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a binding federal statute with criminal penalties, enforcement mechanisms, and mandatory compliance obligations using 'shall' language throughout.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: United States Congress; Mr. Espaillat; Committee on House Administration
• Summary: The bill was introduced by Mr. Espaillat in the House of Representatives and referred to the Committee on House Administration, indicating Congress as the proposing authority.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Developer, AI_Deployer, Affected_Stakeholder
• Entities: persons, political committees, or other entities distributing AI-generated political communications; candidates for Federal office
• Summary: The document targets any person, political committee, or other entity that distributes materially deceptive AI-generated audio impersonating candidates' voices in political communications. It also affects candidates whose voices may be impersonated.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Federal Election Commission; Department of Justice (implied through criminal penalties)
• Summary: The Federal Election Commission is explicitly designated to promulgate regulations and report on compliance. Criminal penalties under title 18 imply Department of Justice enforcement authority.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Federal Election Commission; Committee on House Administration of the House of Representatives; Committee on Rules and Administration of the Senate
• Summary: The Federal Election Commission is required to submit annual reports on compliance and enforcement to Congressional committees, establishing both the FEC as the primary monitor and Congressional committees as oversight bodies.

AI Lifecycle Stages

Lifecycle stages covered by the documents, as defined in the OECD Framework for the Classification of AI Systems

• Build and Use Model
• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document primarily focuses on the Deploy and Operate and Monitor stages, as it regulates the distribution of AI-generated audio in political communications and requires ongoing monitoring and reporting. It does not substantially address earlier lifecycle stages like planning, data collection, or model development.

Technical Scope

Terms relating to technical scope that are mentioned or implicitly referenced in the document

• Generative AI
• Task-specific AI

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly mentions AI-generated audio created by computer-based learning algorithms. It does not reference AI models, AI systems, frontier AI, general purpose AI, foundation models, or compute thresholds. The focus is narrowly on generative AI capabilities for voice synthesis.