ACT List MP Laura McClure has told a parliamentary select committee her member's bill targeting sexually explicit deepfakes is a "first step," urging MPs to look beyond it toward wider law reform, education, and possible regulation of AI.

McClure, the ACT Party's Education Spokesperson, appeared before the Social Services and Community Committee on a Wednesday to discuss the Deepfake Digital Harm and Exploitation Bill, which passed its first reading unanimously on 20 May 2026 and was referred to the committee for public submissions. The submission window closed on 19 June 2026 (Parliament).

The bill amends the Crimes Act 1961 and the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015. It would expand the legal definition of an "intimate visual recording" to include images or videos manipulated by AI without consent, making creating, sharing, or selling sexually explicit deepfakes without consent illegal. McClure has said the bill would make a nude AI-generated fake image as illegal as a real non-consensual nude image (ACT Party).

She told the committee that police found it challenging to prosecute explicit deepfake creation and sharing under existing law because they were required to prove an intent to cause harm. McClure said a successful prosecution earlier in the year had required the victim's family to build an extensive case themselves, pointing to the gap her bill seeks to close (RNZ).

McClure also told MPs the Harmful Digital Communications Act, passed in 2015, needed a full review. She suggested a "national hashing register" as one option worth considering to prevent particular images and footage from being repeatedly shared online. She said deepfaking could be used for fraudulent purposes beyond pornography but described that as a "massive piece of work" for a future government (RNZ).

The bill was drawn from the member's bill ballot and has attracted cross-party support. Te Pāti Māori gave it formal backing ahead of the first reading (ACT Party). McClure has framed the legislation around the principles of personal autonomy and self-ownership (ACT Party).

The legislation lands in a parliamentary context where AI-generated content is outpacing the existing statutory framework. The HDCA, now over a decade old, was written before the proliferation of accessible generative AI tools. The intent-to-harm threshold McClure identified has functioned as a structural barrier to prosecution: police must demonstrate that a person who created or shared a deepfake meant to cause harm, a standard that is difficult to meet when the material spreads through peer networks or encrypted channels where motive is diffuse.

The hashing register proposal McClure floated is not novel in concept. PhotoDNA-style hash-matching technology is already used by major platforms to detect and remove known child sexual abuse material. Extending that model to non-consensual intimate imagery, including deepfakes, would require infrastructure, coordination between platforms and government, and a mechanism for victims or law enforcement to register hashes of specific images. McClure's suggestion was offered as an option worth considering rather than a formal proposal within the bill itself.

The deliberate scoping of the bill to sexually explicit deepfakes, while leaving broader fraudulent applications for future work, reflects a pattern common to member's bills: the need to keep the legislation narrow enough to maintain the cross-party support required for passage under MMP. The unanimous first reading is a signal of broad political agreement on the principle that non-consensual sexual deepfakes should be illegal. The select committee stage is where that consensus will be tested against the specifics of how the law is drafted and what obligations it places on platforms, law enforcement, and individuals.

McClure's call for wider reform, more education, and possible AI regulation goes well beyond what her bill does. It positions the legislation as a floor, not a ceiling, on Parliament's response to AI-generated harm. Whether a future government picks up that broader work remains an open question.

The Social Services and Community Committee will now consider the public submissions received before the 19 June deadline and report back to the House. The bill's passage through subsequent stages will depend on whether the unanimous support at first reading holds once members have debated amendments and the committee's recommendations.