DEEPFAKES Accountability Act, Sec. 2 ("Transparency Requirements")

• 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.

• Exposure to toxic content
• False or misleading information
• Pollution of information ecosystem
• Disinformation, surveillance, and influence at scale
• Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation
• Lack of transparency or interpretability

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

• Compromise of privacy
• Cyberattacks, weapon development or use
• Overreliance and unsafe use

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document has good coverage of approximately 8-10 subdomains, with strong focus on malicious actors (4.1, 4.2, 4.3), misinformation (3.1, 3.2), privacy and security (2.1), discrimination and toxicity (1.2), and human-computer interaction (5.1). Coverage is concentrated in misuse prevention, information integrity, and protection against harmful content domains.

Sector coverage

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

• Information
• Arts, Entertainment & Recreation

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

• Finance & Insurance
• Public Administration (excl. National Security)
• National Security

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

This is an external regulation with broad cross-sectoral applicability. The document governs deepfake production and distribution across multiple sectors, with explicit focus on Information (media, broadcasting, telecommunications), Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation (motion pictures, performing arts), and implicit coverage of sectors where deepfakes could be used for fraud or manipulation including Finance and Insurance, Public Administration, and National Security.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a binding federal statute amending the U.S. Code with mandatory requirements, criminal penalties up to 5 years imprisonment, civil penalties up to $150,000, and enforcement by the Attorney General and federal courts.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: United States Congress
• Summary: The document is titled 'DEEPFAKES Accountability Act' and is identified as being from the 'United States Congress' in the authority field, indicating Congress as the proposing legislative body.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Developer, AI_Deployer
• Summary: The document targets 'any person who, using any means or facility of interstate or foreign commerce, produces an advanced technological false personation record with the intent to distribute such record over the internet' - this includes both developers of deepfake technology and those who deploy/distribute such content. It also targets those who alter records to remove disclosures.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Attorney General; United States Attorney's Office; Federal district courts
• Summary: The Attorney General is explicitly designated as the primary enforcement authority with multiple enforcement responsibilities including designating coordinators, issuing regulations, and pursuing prosecutions. Federal district courts enforce through civil penalties and private rights of action.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Attorney General; United States Attorney's Office coordinators; Congress
• Summary: The Attorney General is responsible for monitoring through designated coordinators who receive public reports, and must submit reports to Congress every 5 years describing trends in prosecutions and civil penalties. Congress receives these monitoring reports.

AI Lifecycle Stages

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

• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document primarily focuses on the Deploy and Operate and Monitor stages of the AI lifecycle, with specific requirements for content provenance technologies during deployment and ongoing disclosure requirements during operation. It does not substantially address earlier stages like planning, data collection, or model building.

Technical Scope

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

• Generative AI

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly addresses AI-generated content, specifically deepfakes and generative AI technologies. It focuses on 'advanced technological false personation records' produced through generative AI or similar technologies. The document does not mention AI models, AI systems, frontier AI, general purpose AI, foundation models, compute thresholds, or open-weight models. It is specifically scoped to generative AI applications that create deepfakes.