AI Deepfakes at Work: When a Fake Image or Video Becomes Workplace Harassment

AI has made a lot of things faster and easier at work. It has also opened the door to something ugly. Yes, if a coworker or supervisor creates or shares a fake image, video, or audio recording of you tied to your gender, race, or another protected trait, that can support a workplace harassment or discrimination claim. Courts are treating this the same way they’d treat any other harassment case, and it doesn’t matter whether the fake got made in the office, on a work laptop, or on someone’s phone after hours. Here’s what California law actually says once one of these fakes enters the picture, and what it could mean for your case.

Is This Really Happening in Workplaces Already?

Yes, and the numbers suggest it’s only accelerating. A Gartner survey of cybersecurity leaders conducted in September 2025 found that 62% of organizations had already experienced some form of deepfake attack in the prior 12 months. Sumsub’s 2025-2026 Identity Fraud Report puts deepfakes at roughly 11% of all fraudulent activity its platform detects worldwide, part of a broader category of sophisticated fraud that grew 180% year over year.

Awareness hasn’t caught up to the risk. The National Cybersecurity Alliance’s most recent Cybersecurity Attitudes and Behaviors Report found that 52% of employed survey participants received no training at all on the security or privacy risks tied to AI tools, even though 65% of them use AI regularly and 43% admit to sharing sensitive work information with it. That gap between adoption and awareness is exactly where workplace deepfake incidents tend to slip through.

Recent lawsuits show what this looks like in practice. A 19-year-veteran Washington State Patrol trooper sued in state court last December after colleagues allegedly created and circulated an AI-generated video mocking his sexual orientation. A former Nashville television meteorologist filed a federal suit the same month, alleging her station’s culture of harassment, including anonymous deepfake sexual images circulated about her, forced her out of her job. In Pikesville, Maryland (Baltimore County), a high school athletic director pleaded guilty to creating a fake audio recording of the school’s principal making racist and antisemitic remarks, and the principal separately settled a negligence and defamation lawsuit against the school.

How Does California Law Treat a Workplace Deepfake?

Doctored content targeting you because of a protected characteristic gets analyzed the same way courts analyze any other harassment or discrimination claim under the Fair Employment and Housing Act. The image doesn’t have to be real to cause real harm, and the law doesn’t require it to be.

A few factors determine whether a fake image or recording supports a hostile work environment claim:

• Whether the content was shared or discussed among coworkers;
• Whether it affected your ability to do your job;
• Whether company equipment or accounts were used to create or distribute it;
• Whether a manager or supervisor was involved in creating or spreading it; and
• Whether your employer acted promptly once it learned what happened.

Your employer doesn’t need to have created the deepfake to face liability. What tends to matter most is what your employer did, or failed to do, once the conduct came to light. An employer that learns about a harassing deepfake and does nothing meaningful to address it can face liability for that inaction alone.

What About California’s Deepfake Law Specifically?

Beyond workplace harassment claims, California gives victims of sexually explicit deepfakes a separate, direct path to compensation. Under California Civil Code Section 1708.86, it is not a defense that the disclosed material included a disclaimer stating that the depicted individual did not consent or did not participate in the sexually explicit material, nor is it a defense that a deepfake pornography service posted a policy prohibiting users from generating such content without consent.

The statute doesn’t let a disclaimer save the creator either. Adding a label saying the material isn’t authentic is not a defense to liability under this law. Under California Civil Code Section 1708.86, a prevailing plaintiff who is a depicted individual may recover the defendant’s monetary gain from the creation and disclosure of the digitized sexually explicit material, as well as economic and non-economic damages (including emotional distress) proximately caused by the disclosure. Alternatively, the plaintiff may elect statutory damages of up to $50,000 (or up to $250,000 if the violation was committed with malice).

What Should You Do If This Happens to You?

Save everything before it disappears. Screenshots, links, messages referencing the content, and the names of anyone who saw or shared it all matter later. Report the incident to HR or a supervisor in writing, since your employer’s response, or lack of one, becomes central to any harassment claim. Avoid confronting the person who created it on your own, and don’t assume that because the image is fake, the law treats it as harmless.

Contact a San Francisco Employment Lawyer

If you believe an AI-generated image, video, or recording targeted you because of a protected characteristic, contact an employment lawyer at McCormack Law Firm at (415) 925-5161 to talk through what happened and what options you have.