Pennsylvania Lawmakers Hear Urgent Calls to Combat AI-Generated Child Sexual abuse Material
HARRISBURG, PA – Pennsylvania’s Senate Majority Policy committee convened a public hearing today, led by Senator Tracy Pennycuick (R-24), to address the escalating threat of AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Law enforcement officials and child safety advocates uniformly voiced strong support for Senate Bill 1050, legislation sponsored by Pennycuick, Senator Scott Martin (R-13), and senator Lisa Baker (R-20) that would mandate reporting of all instances of CSAM, including those created using artificial intelligence.
The bill aims to close a critical gap in existing law as technology evolves to facilitate new forms of child exploitation. Testifiers emphasized the rapidly changing landscape, with AI tools now capable of creating realistic deepfake pornography and enabling online predators to manipulate and exploit children in unprecedented ways.
“Sadly, today our children are being targeted in new ways that weren’t even possible just a few years ago,” Senator Pennycuick stated. “AI-generated CSAM, deepfake pornography, AI chatbots creating harmful content and online predators using technology to manipulate and exploit – this is the new reality. It’s imperative that we teach children safe internet practices so they can decipher what’s real and what’s fake. Today’s public hearing helped us identify what new guardrails are needed to ensure our kids are safe online.”
angela Sperrazza, chief deputy attorney general of the Child Predator Section of the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, described the bill as “essential to ensure Pennsylvania’s laws keep pace with the realities of child exploitation in an increasingly digital and AI-driven world.” She asserted the legislation “sends a powerful and necessary message – Pennsylvania will not normalize the sexualization of children in any form.”
Gabriella Glenning, assistant district attorney and captain of the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office’s Family Protection Unit, highlighted the practical benefits for law enforcement, stating the bill “provides law enforcement with a mechanism to investigate, identify victims and perpetrators and pursue charges when appropriate.”
Advocates also underscored the difficulty in distinguishing between real and synthetic images. Angela M. Liddle, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Family Support Alliance, explained that ”this blurring of reality and fabrication make it nearly impractical to tell wich images depict real children and which are synthetic, yet both normalize abuse and feed the demand for it at the expense of our children.”
Leslie Slingsby, CEO of services and operations for Mission Kids, pointed to existing legal ambiguities. She stated current law “leaves gaps that offenders exploit, frustrates investigators and undermines our collective duty to protect children,” and that the bill would move Pennsylvania towards a “digital world that protects children’s dignity as fiercely as their physical safety.”
Full video of the hearing and submitted testimony are available on the Senate Majority Policy Committee’s website: https://policy.pasenategop.com/policy-111025/.
Joshua J. Paul can be contacted for further facts: jpaul@pasen.gov.
