Criminal Justice (Human Trafficking)

HB 2273 establishes a new "Committee on Sex and Human Trafficking Training" to standardize and improve training for professionals who interact with trafficking victims. The committee, composed of representatives from law enforcement, child advocacy, victim services, and medical centers, will create annual training guidelines and produce digital training materials for professions required to complete such training under existing laws. This bill directly affects state agencies, law enforcement, healthcare providers, and child advocacy organizations that must provide or receive trafficking training. The committee's work will replace outdated training requirements with updated standards, effective January 1, 2027, and expire December 31, 2031. The bill does not create new criminal penalties but focuses on coordinating and modernizing existing training obligations.

HB 2361 makes it a crime to create, share, or possess nonconsensual digital alterations of a person's sexual images (like deepfakes showing someone in explicit acts they never participated in). It targets platforms hosting user-generated content (e.g., social media, apps) by requiring them to establish a clear removal process for such content by December 2026, allowing victims to request takedowns within 48 hours. Violators face a class C felony charge, and victims can sue for $10,000 or actual damages plus legal fees. The law explicitly states disclaimers about lack of consent do not prevent criminal liability. It directly affects individuals whose images are manipulated without consent and platforms that host such content.

HB 2350 updates child pornography laws to explicitly include "artificially generated visual depictions" of minors. The bill defines these as images that are obscene, indistinguishable from real minors, morphed from real minor images, or created without any actual minor involvement. This change makes it illegal to create, distribute, or possess such AI-generated images that depict minors in sexually explicit conduct. The law directly affects anyone producing or sharing synthetic media that mimics real minors, aligning definitions with emerging technology risks.