R U REAL Act

Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Federal Trade Commission shall revise the Telemarketing Sales Rule (part 310 of title 16, Code of Federal Regulations) so as to add a requirement that, if a person makes a call or sends a text message with respect to telemarketing and uses artificial intelligence in such call or text message to emulate a human being, such person shall disclose at the beginning of such call or text message the fact that artificial intelligence is being used.

In this section, the terms telemarketing and text message have the meanings given such terms in section 7 of the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act (15 U.S.C. 6106), as amended by this Act.

Section 6 of the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act (15 U.S.C. 6105) is amended by adding at the end the following:

Notwithstanding subsection (b), in the case of a violation described in paragraph (2), the maximum amount of the civil penalty that may be imposed for such violation under subsection (l) or (m) (as the case may be) of section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 45) shall be twice the maximum amount that may be imposed for such violation under such subsection without regard to this subsection.

The violations described in this paragraph are the following:

(A) A violation of a rule prescribed by the Commission under section 3 with respect to which the party making the call or sending the text message uses artificial intelligence to impersonate an individual or entity with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value.

(B) A violation of a cease-and-desist order issued by the Commission under section 5(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 45(b)) with respect to a violation described in subparagraph (A).

The amendment made by subsection (a) shall apply with respect to violations occurring after the date of the enactment of this Act.

(1) in paragraph (4), by inserting or text message after telephone call; and

(2) by adding at the end the following new paragraph:

The term text message means a message consisting of text, images, sounds, or other information that is transmitted to or from a device that is identified as the receiving or transmitting device by means of a 10-digit telephone number, N11 service code, short code telephone number, or email address, or that is transmitted through application-to-person messaging, and includes—

(i) a short message service (commonly referred to as SMS) message;

(ii) a multimedia message service (commonly referred to as MMS) message; and

(iii) a rich communication service (commonly referred to as RCS) message.

The term text message does not include a real-time, two-way voice or video communication.