New JerseyAI regulation

Regulation Status

• New Jersey regulates AI through a combination of longstanding transparency law, its comprehensive privacy statute, criminal deepfake provisions, and civil-rights rulemaking, rather than a single AI act. The New Jersey Bot Act (N.J.S.A. 56:18-1 et seq.), effective in 2020, requires disclosure at the outset of any bot-driven communication used to sell or advertise merchandise or real estate or to solicit support in an election, with civil penalties of up to $2,500 for a first offense, $5,000 for a second offense, and $10,000 for subsequent offenses, plus Attorney General authority to seek injunctive relief, costs, and attorney fees; it does not impose duties on online-platform, web-hosting, or internet-service providers.
• The New Jersey Data Privacy Act (N.J.S.A. 56:8-166.4 et seq., enacted as P.L.2023 c.266 / S332), effective 15 January 2025, lets consumers opt out of automated processing and profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects and requires data-protection assessments for certain profiling, enforceable at up to $10,000 for a first violation and $20,000 for each subsequent violation. In 2025 New Jersey enacted A3540, establishing criminal penalties for producing, using, or disseminating deepfakes to further a crime or offense, with fines up to $30,000 per violation and a civil cause of action for actual damages or at least $1,000 per knowing or reckless violation. Effective 15 December 2025, the Attorney General's Division on Civil Rights adopted rules under N.J.A.C. 13:16 clarifying that existing anti-discrimination law applies to automated employment decision tools and illustrating how their use may cause disparate impact.
• New Jersey has not enacted a standalone comprehensive AI statute, but its Attorney General has issued guidance treating algorithmic discrimination under the Law Against Discrimination; the state's posture emphasizes bot and deepfake transparency, privacy-based automated-decision rights, and civil-rights enforcement against biased employment AI.