Is It Illegal to Make a Deepfake of Someone?

If you found a deepfake of yourself, or someone told you one exists, you are probably scared and angry, and you want a straight answer. Whether making it was a crime is a fair question, and we will walk through it honestly. But please hear this first. You do not need anyone to be charged, arrested, or sued for you to get the content taken down. Removal and prosecution are two separate roads, and you can start down the removal road today.

This page is general information, not legal advice. Laws differ by state and change over time, and only a lawyer who knows your situation can tell you your exact options. What we can do is give you the plain-language lay of the land, and a clear next step.

The short answer

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Making a deepfake of a real person can be illegal, and increasingly it is, but it depends on what the deepfake shows, what it was used for, where you live, and how old the person is. Here is the honest summary.

• Sexual or nude deepfakes of an adult are covered by a federal law and by a growing list of state laws. Sharing them without consent is illegal in many places.
• Any sexual image of a minor, real or AI-generated, is child sexual abuse material. This is a serious federal crime, full stop.
• Impersonation, fraud, or a fake that harms your reputation or business can trigger civil claims and, in some cases, criminal charges.
• A harmless parody or clearly labeled satire is often legal and protected speech.

So the tool alone is not the crime. What matters is the content and the harm.

The TAKE IT DOWN Act, the federal law that helps most

The TAKE IT DOWN Act is a real US federal law, signed in May 2025. It matters to you for two reasons.

First, it makes it a federal crime to knowingly publish non-consensual intimate images, including AI-generated and deepfake ones, of an identifiable adult. Second, and this is the part that helps you right now, it requires covered online platforms to have a way to remove that content. When the depicted person or their authorized representative sends a valid request, the platform must take the image down, and any close copies it can find, within 48 hours.

You do not have to prove a case in court to use this. You are the depicted person. That gives you the standing to ask, and the platform has a legal duty to respond. This is the fastest lever most people have, and it does not cost anything to pull.

State deepfake and right-of-publicity laws

On top of the federal law, most states now have their own rules, and they fall into a few buckets.

Non-consensual intimate imagery laws. A large majority of states criminalize sharing intimate images without consent, and many have updated those laws to name deepfakes and AI-generated content specifically. Penalties range from misdemeanors to felonies depending on the state and the circumstances.

Right of publicity. This is the right to control the commercial use of your name, face, and voice. If someone uses a deepfake of you to sell something, promote a product, or profit off your likeness, right-of-publicity law may give you a civil claim, even when the content is not sexual.

Election and fraud-specific deepfake laws. Some states have passed rules aimed at deepfakes used to deceive voters or commit fraud.

Because this varies so much, the honest move is to treat your state law as a bonus, and lead with the federal removal path and the platform's own rules, which apply everywhere.

Defamation and impersonation angles

Not every harmful deepfake is sexual. A fake video or image that presents a lie about you as fact, and damages your reputation, can be defamation, which is a civil claim you can bring against whoever made or spread it. A fake account or cloned voice pretending to be you is impersonation. Nearly every major platform bans impersonation in its terms, and you can report it directly. If someone is impersonating you, the right basis is the platform's identity or impersonation report, plus right-of-publicity law, not a copyright complaint. We walk through that path on our page for when someone is impersonating you.

One common trap worth naming. A deepfake is almost never a copyright problem. Copyright, and the DMCA, only apply when you own the work, for example a selfie you personally took that someone reposted. It does not apply to a face someone generated. Routing a deepfake through copyright usually fails and wastes time. The right basis is privacy, non-consensual imagery, or impersonation, depending on what the content is.

Civil versus criminal, and why you can act either way

A criminal case is brought by the government, and it can end in fines or jail for the offender. A civil case is one you bring yourself, usually to recover money or force something to stop. Both can take a long time, and neither is required to get the content removed.

Platform removal is a third, separate track. It runs on the platform's own rules and on laws like the TAKE IT DOWN Act, not on a court. That is why you can get a deepfake pulled down while no one has been charged and no lawsuit exists. You are not waiting on a prosecutor. You are exercising a right you already have as the depicted person.

If a deepfake exists, here is what to do

1. Preserve evidence. Save the links, the usernames, the dates, and take screenshots of the page and the URL. Save the links, not the images. This protects you and gives you what you need to report.
2. If it is sexual and you are an adult, report it through the platform's privacy or non-consensual imagery form, and create a case at StopNCII.org, which helps hashing services block the image across partner platforms.
3. If a minor is involved, do not treat this like a normal takedown. Report to the NCMEC CyberTipline at report.cybertip.org and to law enforcement. AI-generated sexual images of minors are child sexual abuse material.
4. If someone is threatening to leak images unless you pay, this is sextortion. Do not pay and do not keep negotiating, since that rarely stops it. This is not your fault. Preserve the evidence, report to the FBI at ic3.gov or 1-800-CALL-FBI, and use StopNCII.org.
5. If it is a fake account or cloned voice, use the platform's impersonation report.
6. Send the removal request to each platform, in your own name, using the correct legal basis for that content.

A quick note on the messier cases. Mugshot sites, data brokers, and doxxing pages often require a per-site opt-out, and results vary. Google's "Results about you" and "remove personal info" tools can suppress search results that expose your contact information. We can help you prepare the right request, but no honest tool can promise a clean wipe of the entire internet.

How LinksGone helps, for free

LinksGone is a free, do-it-yourself takedown tool. We give you the correct legal templates, route each link to the right form on the right platform, and walk you through sending the notice yourself. You stay the filer of record, in your own name, which is exactly what the TAKE IT DOWN Act and most platform forms want. Filing is free for everyone, every link, every platform, no card. To act, we only ever need the link, never the image itself.

Removal is never guaranteed, and timing varies by platform, so we will not pretend otherwise. But you do not have to wait for a court, and you do not have to do this alone. If you want to understand your options before you start, read how takedowns work, or go straight to the guide for removing deepfake or fake intimate images. Take it one link at a time. You can start whenever you are ready.