Requesting The Hawaii State Commission On The Status Of Women, In Collaboration With The Office Of The Legislative Reference Bureau And Department Of The Attorney General, To Establish A Working Group And Provide A Report To The Legislature On Ways To Strengthen Protections For Survivors Of Image-based Sexual Abuse.
SCR81 is a Senate Concurrent Resolution that asks the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women, working with the Office of the Legislative Reference Bureau and the Department of the Attorney General, to create a working group focused on image-based sexual abuse. The resolution defines the problem broadly to include nonconsensual sharing or threatened sharing of explicit images or videos, and it highlights emerging forms of abuse involving deepfakes, virtual or augmented reality, and other technology-facilitated sexual exploitation.
The working group is directed to include gender-based violence service providers and survivors, and to review statutes and policies from other states to identify approaches Hawaii could adapt. The group must then submit a report with findings, recommendations, and any proposed legislation to the Legislature no later than 40 days before the 2028 Regular Session. The resolution also directs copies to be sent to key state officials and county prosecutors.
Because SCR81 is a concurrent resolution rather than a bill, it does not itself change Hawaii law. Instead, it creates a legislative request for a study and policy review that could lead to future statutory amendments, new programs, or other protections for survivors of image-based sexual abuse. The measure focuses on potential updates to existing privacy and sexual exploitation laws, especially as they relate to nonconsensual imagery, deepfakes, and other technology-enabled abuse, and it could affect how state agencies, prosecutors, and victim-service systems respond to these offenses if follow-up legislation is introduced.
The available record suggests strong support for the resolution. It passed the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously, 5-0, with amendments, and there is no recorded opposition in the provided materials. The bill’s findings frame the issue as a serious and growing harm, particularly for women and survivors of gender-based violence, and the overall tone is preventive and protective rather than punitive.
The main policy question is not whether image-based sexual abuse is harmful, but how Hawaii should strengthen its legal response. The resolution points to possible gaps in current law, especially as new technologies make abuse easier to create and distribute, and it seeks input on whether Hawaii should adopt additional protections from other states. Any future debate is likely to center on the scope of criminal and civil remedies, how to define emerging forms of abuse such as AI-generated deepfakes, and how to balance enforcement with privacy, free speech, and evidentiary concerns.