Sponsors (2)
The bill strengthens federal criminal remedies, penalties, and restitution for nonconsensual intimate‑image distribution to help victims and enable cross‑state enforcement, but does so at the cost of greater liability and compliance burdens for platforms, added enforcement and incarceration risks, and potential privacy risks from broad law‑enforcement exemptions.
Adults whose intimate images are shared without consent—particularly women and young adults—gain a federal criminal remedy and access to restitution, creating a clear path for redress across state lines.
The bill expands federal jurisdiction and penalties for interstate or online nonconsensual intimate-image distribution, enabling prosecution across state lines and authorizing criminal penalties (including prison terms) to deter offenders.
Requires forfeiture of materials and proceeds from violations, which helps remove illicit gains and provides an economic deterrent to offenders.
Communications platforms and online services could face substantial new compliance burdens and legal liability for user content unless they can demonstrate they did not solicit or predominantly distribute the images, potentially raising costs and chilling online services.
Exemptions for law enforcement, intelligence, and correctional activities may allow government actors to collect, retain, or use intimate images without penalty, raising risks of intrusive surveillance and misuse.
The new criminal rules, expanded prosecutions, and forfeiture authorities could increase costs to defendants and their families and raise federal incarceration rates (penalties up to 3 years for some offenses), with fiscal and justice-system impacts.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Creates a federal crime banning nonconsensual capture, distribution, or facilitation of intimate images of adults, defines key terms, and sets penalties while exempting lawful law‑enforcement activity.
Official title: Provide that it is unlawful to knowingly distribute private intimate visual depictions with reckless disregard for the individual's lack of consent to the distribution, and for other purposes.
Introduced February 11, 2025 by Amy Klobuchar · Last progress February 11, 2025
Creates a new federal criminal offense that bans the nonconsensual capture, distribution, or facilitation of intimate visual depictions of adults and defines related terms. The law sets criminal penalties and fines, adopts or references existing federal definitions for key terms (including communications services and sexually explicit conduct), and preserves exemptions for lawful law-enforcement, corrections, and intelligence activities. The provision adds a new chapter to Title 18 with definitions for "intimate visual depiction," "communications service," "capture," "broadcast," and "reasonable expectation of privacy," and clarifies that existing statutes (including 18 U.S.C. §2256 and certain communications‑law definitions) inform coverage and application. It does not itself amend Section 230 or other listed statutes, but it explicitly includes interactive computer services and other provider types in the scope of the covered conduct.