California Sexual Exploitation of a Child: AI-Generated Material Act (SB 1276)

Properties

jurisdiction: US, California
level: state
domain: safety
status: enacted-pending
scope: Amends Penal Code Sections 311.3 and 11165.1 to extend California's sexual exploitation of a child statute and mandated-reporting definitions to digitally altered and AI-generated child sexual abuse material.
obligations: A person is guilty of sexual exploitation of a child if that person knowingly develops, duplicates, prints, downloads, streams, accesses through electronic or digital media, or exchanges any representation that contains or incorporates any digitally altered or artificial-intelligence-generated matter depicting a person under 18 years of age engaged in an act of sexual conduct. The mandated-reporting definition of sexual exploitation under the Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act is broadened to capture AI-generated material.
effectiveDate: 2027-01-01
enactedDate: 2026-09-10
appliesTo: any person who develops, duplicates, downloads, streams, accesses, or exchanges AI-generated or digitally altered child sexual abuse material; mandated reporters under California's Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act
officialUrl: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billStatusClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB1276
notes: Signed by Governor Newsom on September 10, 2026 as Chapter 192, Statutes of 2026 (title quote confirmed directly on the bill's official leginfo status page). The substantive obligations text (the amended Section 311.3 offense language) is drawn from secondary legal/news coverage (kntrialattorneys.com, govbuddy.com); this agent's attempts to fetch the full leginfo bill text timed out and could not independently re-confirm this language this round. The January 1, 2027 effective date is this dataset's standard California operative-date convention for a chaptered statute without its own urgency/effective-date clause (matching ca-sb243, ca-ab489), NOT independently confirmed against the enacted bill's own effective-date language this round. No penalty figure specific to this amendment was located; the underlying Penal Code 311.3 offense is an existing felony/misdemeanor provision, not a new penalty schedule created by this bill. Distinct from all currently tracked entities, including take-it-down-act (federal, covers NCII/deepfakes generally, not child-specific California penal code) and us-safe-ai-act-s5057 (federal procurement-side CSAM/NCII bill, still only proposed): this is a California state criminal-law amendment specifically extending existing child-exploitation offenses to AI-generated material. VALIDATOR NOTE (2026-09-19): independently re-confirmed via leginfo billStatusClient that SB 1276 was chaptered as Chapter 192, Statutes of 2026, approved by the Governor on 09/10/26, with the exact act-title quote reproduced above matching the officialUrl page; the bill's own amended Penal Code sections (311.3, 11165.1) match the claimed scope.

Properties

jurisdiction

US, California

level

state

domain

safety

status

enacted-pending

scope

Amends Penal Code Sections 311.3 and 11165.1 to extend California's sexual exploitation of a child statute and mandated-reporting definitions to digitally altered and AI-generated child sexual abuse material.

obligations

A person is guilty of sexual exploitation of a child if that person knowingly develops, duplicates, prints, downloads, streams, accesses through electronic or digital media, or exchanges any representation that contains or incorporates any digitally altered or artificial-intelligence-generated matter depicting a person under 18 years of age engaged in an act of sexual conduct. The mandated-reporting definition of sexual exploitation under the Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act is broadened to capture AI-generated material.

effectiveDate

2027-01-01

enactedDate

2026-09-10

appliesTo

any person who develops, duplicates, downloads, streams, accesses, or exchanges AI-generated or digitally altered child sexual abuse material; mandated reporters under California's Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act

officialUrl

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billStatusClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB1276

notes

Signed by Governor Newsom on September 10, 2026 as Chapter 192, Statutes of 2026 (title quote confirmed directly on the bill's official leginfo status page). The substantive obligations text (the amended Section 311.3 offense language) is drawn from secondary legal/news coverage (kntrialattorneys.com, govbuddy.com); this agent's attempts to fetch the full leginfo bill text timed out and could not independently re-confirm this language this round. The January 1, 2027 effective date is this dataset's standard California operative-date convention for a chaptered statute without its own urgency/effective-date clause (matching ca-sb243, ca-ab489), NOT independently confirmed against the enacted bill's own effective-date language this round. No penalty figure specific to this amendment was located; the underlying Penal Code 311.3 offense is an existing felony/misdemeanor provision, not a new penalty schedule created by this bill. Distinct from all currently tracked entities, including take-it-down-act (federal, covers NCII/deepfakes generally, not child-specific California penal code) and us-safe-ai-act-s5057 (federal procurement-side CSAM/NCII bill, still only proposed): this is a California state criminal-law amendment specifically extending existing child-exploitation offenses to AI-generated material. VALIDATOR NOTE (2026-09-19): independently re-confirmed via leginfo billStatusClient that SB 1276 was chaptered as Chapter 192, Statutes of 2026, approved by the Governor on 09/10/26, with the exact act-title quote reproduced above matching the officialUrl page; the bill's own amended Penal Code sections (311.3, 11165.1) match the claimed scope.