Crimes: sexual exploitation of a child

The law updates criminal and child-abuse-reporting rules for digital and AI-created depictions of sexual conduct involving people under 18. It preserves exceptions for legitimate law-enforcement, prosecution, medical, scientific, educational, and specified lawful activities.

What the law does ​

• Makes knowingly downloading, streaming, or accessing child sexual-exploitation material a misdemeanor or felony, alongside developing, duplicating, printing, or exchanging it.
• Covers digitally altered and artificial-intelligence-generated matter depicting a person under 18 engaged in sexual conduct.
• Defines this conduct as sexual exploitation for child-abuse reporting purposes.
• Exempts minors under 18 who solely view sexual conduct, as well as unsolicited material received without knowledge or consent through systems the recipient does not control.
• Authorizes up to one year in county jail, a fine up to $2,000, or both for a violation, with state-prison punishment for certain repeat offenders.

Who it affects ​

• People who knowingly create, copy, share, download, stream, or access covered sexual material depicting minors.
• Mandated child-abuse reporters assessing whether sexual exploitation must be reported.
• Law-enforcement and prosecution agencies, and people engaged in legitimate medical, scientific, educational, or specified commercial-film-development activities.

Context ​

The law does not require proof that the material is obscene to establish the offense.