The US Senate has introduced new legislation aimed at confronting the growing use of artificial intelligence in financial fraud, with a specific focus on deepfake scams that exploit voice, audio, and identity replication.
The bill, titled the Preventing Deep Fake Scams Act, would establish a federal task force dedicated to examining how AI is being used across the financial services sector and how it is being weaponized by bad actors.
The proposal was introduced in the Senate by Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia.
The lawmakers warn that the rise of social media and publicly available audio and video has made it easier for criminals to harvest personal data and create convincing deepfakes that can be used to access financial accounts.
“Bad actors could utilize deepfakes, including voice and audio manipulation, to compromise and access the financial accounts of a consumer.”
The legislation would formally establish a Task Force on Artificial Intelligence in the Financial Services Sector, chaired by the Treasury Secretary or a designee, with participation from the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
Under the bill, the task force would be required to submit a report to Congress within one year of enactment, following a public comment period and consultations with banks, credit unions, third-party vendors and AI experts.
The report would be mandated to cover how financial institutions currently use AI to prevent fraud, define key AI terms, including “generative AI” and “deepfakes,” outline risks posed by AI-enabled identity theft, and recommend best practices and potential legislative or regulatory responses to protect consumers.
The task force would dissolve 90 days after delivering its final report, positioning the effort as a targeted response to rapidly evolving AI-enabled financial crime rather than a permanent regulatory body.
The bill comes as reports have surfaced that deepfakes have now become the number one AI fear among consumers, ranking higher than the risk of losing their jobs to automation. In a poll of 7,000 consumers across the world, cybersecurity firm Bitdefender found that 37% of respondents worry about AI’s power to aid in the creation of sophisticated scams, while 30% say they’re more concerned about AI taking away jobs.
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