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Panel hears bill to modernize blackmail law to cover AI-altered and minor-targeted media
Summary
Lawmakers reviewed HB 25-94 to modify the blackmail statute so threats to disseminate videotape, images or AI-altered media are chargeable regardless of victim age or how media were produced; prosecutors asked to preserve breach-of-privacy protections and to distinguish blackmail from extortion.
The House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 5 heard House Bill 25-94, a draft intended to modernize Kansas' blackmail statute to address AI-altered imagery and situations where existing breach-of-privacy references leave minors unprotected.
Jason Thompson of the Revisor’s Office said the bill amends KSA 21-54-28 to change the subsection that governs threats to disseminate a videotape, photograph or image so prosecutors are not stymied by current references to the breach-of-privacy statute. The draft explicitly covers media "generated in whole or in part, altered or modified by AI," Thompson said.
Tabitha Owen, representing the Kansas County and District Attorneys Association, described cases in which victims under 18 were excluded from blackmail prosecutions because the breach-of-privacy statute requires the subject of the media to be over 18. "We may still be able to charge blackmail based on the threat alone," Owen said, but she argued the statutory linkage left an enforcement gap for children and teens.
Prosecutors and law-enforcement witnesses urged the committee to keep certain breach-of-privacy language (hidden-camera provisions) and to ensure the statute distinguishes blackmail’s compelled behavior element from sex-extortion statutes. Joshua Stewart (Sedgwick County) and Ed Klump supported updating wording (for example, replacing "videotape" with "video") and asked for clarifying language that covers media regardless of how created, including AI-manufactured images.
Members raised First Amendment concerns about parody and public figures; Joshua Stewart said the blackmail offense is defined by an element that requires a demand for action or payment, which separates ordinary parody from criminal blackmail. The committee closed the hearing after hearing several proponent witnesses and receiving written testimony from additional proponents and prosecutors.
No vote on HB 25-94 occurred during the hearing; committee members and the reviser indicated further drafting and potential amendments are likely to address overlap with extortion and to preserve necessary breach-of-privacy protections.
