HF1606 passed the Minnesota State House by a vote of 132-1, and now goes to the House Senate. The bill would prohibit a user to access, download or use a website, application, software, program or other service to nudify an adult or child image or video, according to the Minnesota House of Representatives.
The bill defines “nudify” as altering or generating an image or video to depict an intimate part not shown in the original image or video of an identifiable person, where the result is realistic enough that a reasonable person would believe the intimate part belongs to that person. It also bans operators from nudifying an image or video on behalf of a user, reports TheDeepDive.ca.
Democrat State Rep. Jessica Hanson sponsored the bill:
[Nudification technology has] empowered and enabled pedophiles and sexual predators around the globe. It has harmed children who are made victims by their cruel peers, women who are made victims by men they have trusted for decades. And what’s worse is that these predators are increasingly profiting while wreaking this havoc.
However, Republican State Rep. Drew Roach opposes the bill because he claims it doesn’t get at the root cause and prevent it from happening in the future. Roach claimed the bill wouldn’t prevent someone from nudifying an image or video if they somehow know how to do it themselves:
What we’re going to do here is we’re going to attack a software, a manufacturer and instead, shifting our focus on that instead of the perpetrators of these crimes. If we want to prevent this from happening in the future, we should go after those perpetrators with the full force of the law.
(Sources: TheDeepDive.ca, Minnesota House of Representatives, Image: MNHouseInfo)