If you've read about "nudification" apps — AI tools that take an ordinary photo of a real person and generate a fake nude or sexualized image of them — there's a new law worth knowing about. On August 1, 2026, Minnesota became the first U.S. state to ban this specific kind of AI tool outright.
The law, known as HF 1606, doesn't target the person who types a request into one of these tools. Instead, it goes after the companies and websites that offer the tool in the first place — banning any online service that lets someone turn a real photo into a convincing fake nude image of an identifiable person without that person's consent. Violators face civil penalties of up to $500,000 per violation, pursued by the state Attorney General. Separately, the law also gives victims themselves the right to sue an app's owner directly for damages.
The law hasn't gone unchallenged. Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, whose Grok chatbot can generate and edit images, sued to block it just before it took effect, arguing it's written so broadly that it violates free speech. A federal judge, Donovan Frank, denied xAI's request for an emergency pause on July 31 — his reasoning was that xAI had waited nearly three months after the law was signed before asking for emergency relief, which undercut its claim that it needed the court to act immediately. That let the law take effect on schedule. A full hearing on whether to block the law for longer took place on August 19; as of this writing, the judge hasn't yet issued his decision.
For now, the law stands, and Minnesota residents targeted by this kind of fake image have both the Attorney General's office and their own right to sue behind them, on top of ordinary platform reporting. If you or someone you know discovers a fake AI image or video like this — in Minnesota or anywhere else — our guide on what to do if someone made a deepfake of you covers the practical steps: saving evidence, getting it taken down, and involving police if it's being used to threaten or extort you.
Sources
- Judge denies request by Elon Musk's xAI to pause Minnesota nudification ban — NBC News
- Request by Elon Musk's xAI to temporarily halt Minnesota nudification technology ban denied by federal judge — CBS News Minnesota
- Minnesota Bans Nudification Technology in First-of-Its-Kind AI Law — Multistate.ai
- Minnesota Deepfake Laws: AI Images, Voice Cloning & Penalties — Recording Law