North Texas mother calls on state lawmakers to address sexual, AI-generated deepfakes

A North Texas mother whose teenage daughter was photographed by a classmate using fake, explicit images is urging state lawmakers to consider drafting new laws that would impose stricter publication deadlines on teens who create such images.

Anna McAdams spoke to members of the Texas Senate Committee on Criminal Justice on Thursday, tearfully describing how her then 14-year-old daughter – a student at Aledo High School, about 45 miles west of Dallas – was awakened last fall by a barrage of text messages from her friends. A male classmate, they said, had used an artificial intelligence app to manipulate photos of her and her friends so that they were naked.

He then allegedly shared the fake images on a large scale on Snapchat, she said.

“My daughter’s innocence was shattered and her eyes were opened … to how cruel a human being can truly be,” McAdams said of her daughter, who expressed concerns about how the doctored images could affect her efforts to apply to college or find a job. “As parents, it made us angry that we couldn’t protect her.”

The committee hearing comes after Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick tasked members with, among other things, investigating how sex offenders are using deepfake technology and AI to “harm or exploit children” and recommending laws “to protect children as technology advances,” according to a list of priorities Patrick put forward for members to tackle before the next legislative session.

Such digitally altered photos – so-called “deepfakes” – can be harmful, experts told the committee. However, how school districts and law enforcement agencies can punish students who create such images is a legal gray area.

Their proposed amendments were aimed at countering the rapid rise of generative AI to create child pornography. During the meeting, Steven Stone, a technical lead at the Department of Public Safety, said the technology used to generate images is evolving so quickly that it is “competing” with the compensating technology used to detect whether an image was artificially generated.

Some of her proposals would build on House Bill 2700, which passed last session. The bill changed the definition of child pornography to include footage that uses the image of a real child to create pornography, including those created using AI. However, Stone said it is sometimes difficult for law enforcement to verify that the person depicted is a real person.

The Aledo School District has acknowledged the challenge. In a statement Friday, Mercedes Mayer, a spokeswoman for the school district, confirmed that an incident involving AI-generated material occurred last fall and was reported by parents to the Parker County Sheriff’s Office. The school district assisted the sheriff’s office with its investigation upon request, she said.

“Like schools across the state and country, the district is reviewing its student code of conduct in light of potential student use of AI and is planning changes to better reflect the use of AI. However, the harshest consequences for misconduct are set by state law for all public schools in Texas, so more stringent criminal and disciplinary penalties would need to be revised by the state,” Mayer said.

Mayer said the male classmate accused of creating the explicit images was disciplined by the sheriff’s office, but did not elaborate in the statement. A sheriff’s office spokesman did not respond to an email requesting information Friday.