Deepfakes and Digital Harassment: What Employers Need to Know in 2025 - Littler Mendelson P.C.
At a Glance
- AI-generated videos, images, and audio are being weaponized in the workplace to harass, impersonate, and intimidate employees, often with devastating consequences.
- While there are no workplace-specific federal laws that address deepfake harassment, new laws like the TAKE IT DOWN Act and Florida’s Brooke’s Law, passed in May and June 2025, respectively, address this growing digital threat.
- Outdated policies, untrained staff, and unclear protocols leave organizations vulnerable. Now is the time to audit, train, and prepare.
The landscape of workplace harassment has evolved beyond physical offices, after-hours texts and off-site events. Employers now face a sophisticated and deeply unsettling threat: deepfake technology. Once the domain of tech experts, AI-powered tools that generate hyper-realistic but fabricated videos, images, and audio are now widely accessible — even to those with minimal technical skills.
As of 2023, 96% of deepfakes were sexually explicit, overwhelmingly targeting women without their consent. By 2024, nearly 100,000 explicit deepfake images and videos were being circulated daily across more than 9,500 websites. Alarmingly, a significant portion of these featured underage individuals.
While image-based sexual abuse is not new, AI has dramatically amplified its scale and impact. In the workplace, deepfakes can be weaponized to harass, intimidate, retaliate, or destroy reputations—often with limited recourse under traditional employment...
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