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Deepfake Pornography

Cyber and Technology-Enabled Offenses

Sexually explicit image or video content created using artificial intelligence to graft a real person's face or likeness onto another person's body without the depicted person's consent, most often targeting a private individual or a public figure such as a celebrity or public official. A number of countries, and within the United States a growing number of individual states, enacted specific criminal legislation addressing the creation or distribution of non-consensual deepfake pornography during the early 2020s, after existing laws addressing non-consensual intimate image distribution, drafted before the technology existed, were found not to clearly cover a fabricated image of a real person rather than a genuine photograph or recording of them.

Facts
Classification Code
Virginia Code section 18.2-386.2 1
Elements of Offense
a person whose image was used in creating, adapting, or modifying a videographic or still image with the intent to depict an actual person and who is recognizable as an actual person 1
Classification
Offense Grade
Minor or Summary Offense 1
Connections

Has Offense Grade

Entity-backed identity for the offense-grade enum value this offense already carries, resolved to a crime concept by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The offense-grade fact itself stays on the offense unchanged.

Sources
1. Virginia Code 18.2-386.2, Unlawful dissemination or sale of images of another; penalty
  • Section 18.2-386.2, dissemination clause
    Any person who, with the intent to coerce, harass, or intimidate, maliciously disseminates or sells any videographic or still image
  • Section 18.2-386.2, falsely created image clause
    a person whose image was used in creating, adapting, or modifying a videographic or still image with the intent to depict an actual person and who is recognizable as an actual person
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