Connecticut Enacts Child Sexual Abuse Material Statute Update, Criminalizes Computer-Generated CSAM

Connecticut passed Substitute House Bill No. 5262, Public Act No. 24-118, in June 2024, updating its child pornography statute to use the term child sexual abuse material and expanding the definition to explicitly include computer-generated CSAM. The bill was signed by the Governor on September 29, 2024, and represents Connecticut's effort to ensure that digitally created and altered visual depictions fall within the scope of criminal CSAM laws.

Statutory definitions determine prosecutorial scope but do not address the operational challenge of detecting synthetic CSAM in real time as it moves through direct-message channels. Guardii's AI-driven detection analyzes conversation dynamics, such as coercion to produce images, threats involving fabricated or altered material, and patterns consistent with sextortion or grooming, surfacing threats before a child complies with a demand or an offender publishes generated content. This approach addresses the harm at the point of contact, regardless of whether the imagery is real, manipulated or entirely synthetic, and without requiring content inspection that compromises user privacy.