{"id":216021,"date":"2026-02-21T11:29:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T16:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/21\/becker-bill-aims-to-curb-fraud-involving-ai-deepfakes\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T12:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T17:00:12","slug":"becker-bill-aims-to-curb-fraud-involving-ai-deepfakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/21\/becker-bill-aims-to-curb-fraud-involving-ai-deepfakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Becker bill aims to curb fraud involving AI deepfakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Becker bill aims to curb fraud involving AI deepfakes<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.paloaltoonline.com\/technology\/2026\/02\/21\/becker-bill-aims-to-curb-fraud-involving-ai-deepfakes\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-02-21 11:29:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.paloaltoonline.com<\/a><\/p>\n

State Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, has introduced a bill in the California Senate designed to protect people from AI-related fraud and impersonation. Photo by Magali Gauthier from March 2, 2021. <\/p>\n

Seeking to combat the increasing use of artificial intelligence for fraud and defamation, State Sen. Josh Becker introduced legislation on Feb. 19 that would raise penalties for scams involving deepfake technology and create new avenues for removing the offending images. <\/p>\n

The impetus for Becker\u2019s bill is rooted in cases where bad actors have used the technology to commit fraud or harm people\u2019s reputations. In one case, a woman from Southern California lost her home and life savings when scammers used deepfake technology to impersonate the actor Steve Burton. The woman believed she was in a relationship with Burton, and transferred the money to the scammers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In other cases, AI technologies, including xAI\u2019s Grok chatbot, have been used to generate sexually explicit content of women without their permission. The digital replicas are highly realistic, making it difficult to discern what is real and what is AI-generated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cArtificial intelligence should empower people and not be weaponized against them,\u201d Becker said in a press release. \u201cAn algorithm [should not be] used to defraud others, damage their reputation or violate their dignity. The Digital Dignity Act ensures Californians have real protections and real remedies in the age of AI.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Becker\u2019s office, the Digital Dignity Act clarifies that impersonation with a digital replica is now punishable under existing defamation law. It also increases the penalties for people found liable of defamation or impersonation when using AI-generated content.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Finally, the law would require platforms that host AI-generated content to provide pathways for victims to remove unauthorized AI-generated replicas. Becker\u2019s office explained that in cases where large…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Becker bill aims to curb fraud involving AI deepfakes https:\/\/www.paloaltoonline.com\/technology\/2026\/02\/21\/becker-bill-aims-to-curb-fraud-involving-ai-deepfakes\/ Publish Date: 2026-02-21 11:29:00 Source…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":216022,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.paloaltoonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/95409_original.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216021"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216023,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216021\/revisions\/216023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}