HawaiiAI regulation

Regulation Status

• Hawaii has not enacted a comprehensive AI statute and its enacted AI legislation operates through discrete amendments to existing criminal and election law. Its earliest AI-adjacent measure is SB 309 (2021), which expanded Hawaii's first-degree violation-of-privacy offense to reach the intentional creation, with intent to harm, of a nude or sexually explicit image or video of a 'composite fictitious person' that is identifiable as a real individual, capturing early synthetic and deepfake imagery within existing penalties.
• In 2024 Hawaii enacted SB 2687, a deceptive-media-in-election-advertisements law that prohibits recklessly distributing materially deceptive media, including AI-generated content, during an election cycle where it risks harming a candidate's reputation or electoral prospects or altering voter behavior, subject to a disclaimer exception. Enforcement combines criminal charges and fines with a civil right of action for injunctive relief and damages. Hawaii has not passed frontier-model, automated-decision, or general-purpose AI legislation as of mid-2026, and it has no omnibus AI governance framework.
• Executive and agency developments: Governor signs deepfake and AI-companion safeguards: Announces signing of HB 2137 (Act 247), providing remedies for harmful unauthorized realistic digital imitations, and SB 3001 (Act 248), addressing AI-companion disclosures, self-harm protocols, reporting, and minors' protections. The release is dated July 14, although the webpage was posted July 15.