Senate weighs making AI-generated intimate images a crime and proposes Federal Penal Code reforms

Mexico’s Senate committees are examining a measure that would treat the creation of realistic sexual images, videos or audio with artificial intelligence as a crime when the person represented did not consent.

The bill sent by the Chamber of Deputies proposes changes to Articles 199 Octies and 199 Nonies of the Federal Penal Code. It would define sexual-privacy violations to include sharing, distributing or publishing intimate material, as well as recording, photographing, printing or producing it without the consent or authorization of an identifiable adult.

The proposal would also specifically cover material generated, simulated or edited with artificial-intelligence tools or digital-editing programs. Those offenses would carry the same penalties established in Article 199 Septies: four to eight years in prison and a fine of 400 to 1,000 times the daily value of the Measurement and Updating Unit.

The measure also proposes penalties for generating realistic or plausible sexual or exhibitionist depictions of children, adolescents or people unable to understand the meaning of the act or resist the conduct, whether or not an identifiable real victim exists. That provision would be added to Article 16 of Mexico’s General Law to Prevent, Punish and Eradicate Human-Trafficking Crimes and Protect and Assist Victims.