On March 26, 2026, Minnesota's House Commerce Finance and Policy Committee unanimously advanced HF1606, a bill sponsored by Rep. Jessica Hanson (DFL-Burnsville) that would ban accessing, downloading, or using any website, app, or software to create AI-generated nude alterations of a person's image without their consent. The bill also prohibits performing nudification on behalf of others and bans advertising or promoting nudification tools.

Why It Matters

Minnesota's bill represents a growing U.S. state-level trend of targeting nudification technology at the tool level rather than just criminalizing output. Combined with the EU's outright ban, the Dutch court's injunction against Grok, and South Dakota's new deepfake felony law, the regulatory noose around AI nudification is tightening rapidly. For AI companies developing image generation tools, the compliance landscape now requires active prevention of non-consensual intimate image generation — not just post-hoc takedowns.

HF1606 now heads to the House Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Committee. A previous version of the legislation was introduced last session but failed after being rolled into a larger omnibus bill that did not advance. The current bill includes civil lawsuit provisions — the prior version allowed injured parties to seek damages of no less than $500,000 per violation, making it one of the most aggressive anti-nudification measures proposed in any U.S. state.

Minnesota already has a 2023 law addressing deepfake distribution with penalties of up to five years in prison or civil penalties of up to $10,000 per instance. HF1606 goes further by targeting the creation tools themselves rather than just the distribution of resulting images, following the EU Parliament's recent vote to ban AI nudification apps entirely under an AI Act amendment.

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Update — 2026-03-28

Initial entry — story first created.

Update — 2026-05-03

On May 1, 2026, the Minnesota Senate passed HF1606 by a unanimous 65–0 bipartisan vote — clearing the bill's final legislative hurdle and sending it to Governor Tim Walz for signature. With Walz's expected signature, Minnesota will become the first U.S. state to explicitly ban the creation of AI-generated pornographic images without a person's consent at the tool level, not just the distribution level. The law takes effect August 1, 2026, on signature.

The Senate version of the bill confirmed the central enforcement provisions: survivors may sue nudification app owners directly for damages (mental anguish, attorney fees, plus up to triple actual damages and punitive damages), and the Minnesota Attorney General is empowered to collect civil penalties of up to $500,000 per violation (per photo or video). The bill also requires companies operating nudification technology to actively disable access for Minnesota residents — a geo-blocking obligation similar to the response Pornhub has taken to state-level age verification laws. Standard image-editing tools (Photoshop, etc.) that "require technical skill to operate" are explicitly exempted, narrowing the scope to one-click AI nudification services.

Sen. Erin Maye Quade (DFL), the Senate sponsor, framed the moment in floor remarks: "Today, we led the nation protecting women, children and everyone in public life from the harm caused by AI nudification technology." The bill is now part of a rapidly hardening U.S. state-level posture — alongside the EU's outright ban via the AI Act amendment, the Dutch court's injunction against xAI's Grok, and ongoing federal enforcement under the TAKE IT DOWN Act (whose May 19 platform compliance deadline lands 18 days after Senate passage of HF1606).

New Sources

Update — 2026-05-16

Governor Tim Walz signed HF1606 into law on May 8, 2026, making Minnesota the first U.S. state to criminalize the use of AI nudification technology itself rather than only the distribution of resulting images. The law takes effect August 1, 2026. The signing ceremony was attended by bill sponsors Rep. Jessica Hanson (House) and Sen. Erin Maye Quade (Senate), along with survivors who had testified during committee hearings about images created of them being used in harassment campaigns. Walz framed the signing as a national first, telling reporters it gives Minnesotans and the AG's office "a pathway to go after companies that are behind this kind of AI."

The signed law confirms the core enforcement framework outlined in earlier coverage: civil lawsuits by survivors against nudification-app operators with damages of $500,000+ per violation (per image or video), AG-led enforcement, and a geo-blocking obligation requiring nudification-app operators to actively disable access for Minnesota residents — a model that mirrors Pornhub/Aylo's state-level age-verification geo-blocking response. The law explicitly exempts professional image-editing software like Photoshop that "requires technical skill to operate," narrowing scope to one-click "deepnude"-style AI tools.

Walz's signature lands eleven days before the federal TAKE IT DOWN Act's May 19 platform-takedown deadline, layering Minnesota's tool-level prohibition on top of the federal nonconsensual-imagery-removal regime. Combined with the EU's AI Act nudification-app ban (March 2026), Utah's HB 276 (effective May 6), and the UK Crime and Policing Act 2026's nudification-tool provisions (Royal Assent April 29), Minnesota's signature completes one of the densest months for anti-nudification legislation since the technology emerged. Civil rights groups including EPIC and the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative have called for additional state action; New York, California, and Washington are reported to have similar bills drafted.

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