AI Laws in Dubuque, Iowa
AI Laws USA tracks 20 AI rules that apply to people and businesses in Dubuque, Iowa: 10+ federal rules, 8 Iowa state-level rules, and 2 local Dubuque/county ordinances. Coverage is strongest on government use of AI, automated decision-making, consumer protection, and consumer data privacy. 7 of these rules are already in effect. Each entry below links to its official source.
Dubuque local AI rules (and Dubuque County County)
2 local AI rules specific to Dubuque, Iowa or Dubuque County County.
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Enacted (not yet in effect) Strength: moderate
Dubuque IA 6-month hyperscale data center moratorium (2026)
Dubuque, IA · Enacted September 21, 2026 · Dubuque, IA — Hyperscale data center moratorium ordinance (approved Sept. 21, 2026); approved ordinance at dubuqueia.portal.civicclerk.com/event/312/files/attachment/11230
Dubuque's City Council approved a six-month pause on building 'hyperscale' data centers in the city. A facility counts as hyperscale if it meets any one of four tests: 100,000 square feet or larger, more than 75 megawatts of electrical demand, 5,000 or more servers, or more than 50 gallons per minute of water use for cooling or operations. The council also told the City Attorney's Office to draft a longer-term data center ordinance. The city says no data center project has been formally proposed in Dubuque.
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In effect Strength: limited
12-month moratorium on data centers
Dubuque County, IA · Effective May 26, 2026 · 12-month moratorium on data centers
The Dubuque County Board of Supervisors voted 2-1 on May 26, 2026 to enact a 12-month moratorium on data centers while staff research and develop county zoning regulations for such facilities.
Iowa-level AI rules
8 Iowa state rules apply to residents and businesses in Dubuque. Sorted strongest first.
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In effect Strength: limited
Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy (ENTERPRISE P
Iowa · Effective March 31, 2025 · Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy (ENTERPRISE PY-AI)
Iowa's enterprise generative-AI policy, issued under Iowa Administrative Code 129-8.4(8B), sets minimum requirements and prohibited uses for generative AI, mandating human review of AI outputs and disclosure of AI-generated code.
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In effect Strength: limited
Attorney General Brenna Bird Warns of Deepfake Dangers as St
Iowa · Effective August 19, 2025 · Attorney General Brenna Bird Warns of Deepfake Dangers as Students Head Back to School
The Iowa Attorney General issued a consumer alert warning parents and schools that AI-generated deepfake images used to harass or bully students are criminal acts under state and federal law.
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In effect Strength: limited
IA DOI AI Bulletin
IA · Effective November 7, 2024 · Iowa Insurance Division Bulletin 24-04 (2024-11-07)
The IA Department of Insurance adopted the NAIC Model Bulletin on Use of Artificial Intelligence Systems by Insurers. Insurers licensed in IA must maintain a written AI program with governance, risk-management, testing, third-party-AI oversight, and documentation controls. The bulletin operationalizes existing unfair-trade-practice and unfair-discrimination law as applied to insurers' AI use cases — underwriting, pricing, claims, fraud detection, and marketing.
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In effect Strength: limited
Iowa Consumer Data Protection Act
Iowa · Effective January 1, 2025 · Iowa SF 262 (2023), Iowa Code ch. 715D
Iowa's privacy law gives consumers rights to access, delete, copy, and opt out of the sale of their personal data and targeted advertising. Notably it does NOT include a profiling opt-out, making it one of the more business-friendly state privacy laws.
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Enacted (not yet in effect) Strength: moderate
Iowa HF 2635 (no AI-only prior-auth denials)
Iowa · Effective January 1, 2027 · Iowa H.F. 2635, 91st Gen. Assemb. (2026), Sec. 514F.8(2A), eff. Jan. 1, 2027
Iowa lets a utilization review organization use an AI-based algorithm or system to conduct an initial review of a prior-authorization request, but forbids relying on AI as the sole basis to deny, delay, or downgrade a medical-necessity prior-authorization request. A qualified human reviewer — a clinical peer or qualified reviewer — must make the binding determination.
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Enacted (not yet in effect) Strength: limited
Iowa SF 2417 (Conversational AI Safety Act)
Iowa · Effective July 1, 2027 · Iowa S.F. 2417, 91st Gen. Assemb. (2026), applies July 1, 2027
Iowa requires operators of conversational AI services to clearly disclose that a user is interacting with artificial intelligence — through a persistent disclaimer or a notice repeated at least every three hours of continuous use — whenever a reasonable person might otherwise believe they are talking to a human. Operators must adopt protocols to respond to user messages about suicidal ideation or self-harm, including referring the user to crisis resources, and may not represent that the service provides professional psychological or behavioral health care, with extra safeguards for minors.
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In effect Strength: limited
Iowa Synthetic Intimate Content Law
Iowa · Effective July 1, 2024 · Iowa HF 2240 (2024)
Iowa criminalizes generating or distributing synthetic images or videos depicting a person in sexual acts or nudity without consent. Violations involving adults are aggravated misdemeanors; involving minors, felonies. Expressly motivated by AI-generated pornographic deepfakes.
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In effect Strength: limited
Iowa AI CSAM Law
Iowa · Effective July 1, 2024 · Iowa SF 2243 (2024), amending Iowa Code § 728
Iowa amended its sexual-exploitation-of-a-minor law to explicitly include depictions 'created, adapted, or modified' by AI to appear to show an identifiable minor in a prohibited act. First offense: Class D felony (up to 5 years); second: Class C felony (up to 10 years). Passed unanimously.
Federal AI rules that apply in Dubuque, Iowa
These federal rules apply everywhere in the United States, including Dubuque, Iowa. Showing the 10 strongest and most recent.
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In effect Strength: stronger
TVA data center capacity commitment charge (2026)
Tennessee Valley Authority · Effective October 1, 2026 · Tenn. Valley Auth. Bd. of Dirs. — Data Center Capacity Commitment Charge (approved Aug. 20, 2026; eff. Oct. 1, 2026)
The Tennessee Valley Authority's Board of Directors approved a separate, higher wholesale rate for data centers on August 20, 2026, effective October 1. New or expanding data center loads above 5 megawatts now fall under a Capacity Commitment Charge attached to TVA's data center rate schedules, designed to recover the incremental capacity costs those customers impose on the system. The headline figures are substantial: upfront capacity commitment charges of roughly $1.5 million per megawatt, payable over three to five years, and an all-in average billing increase for data center customers of about 10%, phased in across three consecutive fiscal years. The stated purpose is to keep residential rates low while still serving growing data center demand. TVA matters here out of proportion to a single utility. It is a federal corporate agency supplying power across seven states, so this is not a state rate case but a regional cost-allocation decision reaching a large share of the Southeast — and TVA is among the first large US utilities to adopt a tariff aimed specifically at AI-driven load. Where most 2026 measures in this dataset restrict where data centers may be built, this one changes what they pay to run.
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In effect Strength: stronger
Bartz v. Anthropic
N.D. Cal. · Effective September 5, 2025 · Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, No. 3:24-cv-05417 (N.D. Cal.)
Authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson sued Anthropic over its use of pirated-book datasets to train Claude. In June 2025 Judge William Alsup ruled that training on lawfully purchased books was fair use. The piracy claims (LibGen ingestion) proceeded toward settlement; in September 2025 Anthropic agreed to a $1.5 billion class settlement covering ~500,000 works. Judge Alsup granted preliminary approval September 25, 2025 and final approval July 20, 2026. The appeal period runs through August 19, 2026; class members will not receive payments until at least end of 2026.
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In effect Strength: stronger
COPPA + 2025 Rule (childrens data)
United States · Effective June 23, 2025 · 15 U.S.C. §§ 6501–6506; 16 C.F.R. Part 312
COPPA requires online services aimed at children under 13 to get verifiable parental consent before collecting kids' personal data. The 2025 rule update — fully in effect since April 22, 2026 — adds biometric identifiers (like face templates and voiceprints, which matter for AI tools), requires separate parental consent before sharing children's data for targeted advertising, and tightens data retention limits.
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In effect Strength: stronger
TAKE IT DOWN Act
United States · Effective May 19, 2025 · Pub. L. No. 119-12 (S. 146)
Makes it a federal crime to knowingly publish intimate images of someone without consent, including AI-generated deepfakes. Social media and similar platforms must give victims a way to request removal and must take the content (and known copies) down within 48 hours. The platform removal requirement became enforceable May 19, 2026, and the FTC has already begun enforcement.
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Blocked / in litigation
NetChoice v. Yost (Ohio)
S.D. Ohio · Effective April 16, 2025 · NetChoice, LLC v. Yost, No. 2:24-cv-00047 (S.D. Ohio Apr. 16, 2025)
Ohio's Social Media Parental Notification Act — requiring parental consent for minors' social-media use, including algorithmic feeds — was preliminarily enjoined on February 12, 2024, then permanently enjoined on April 16, 2025 when the district court granted summary judgment for NetChoice. The state appealed to the Sixth Circuit, which vacated the district court's injunction in 2026.
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In effect Strength: stronger
Thaler v. Perlmutter (Copyright)
D.C. Cir. · Effective March 18, 2025 · Thaler v. Perlmutter, 130 F.4th 1039 (D.C. Cir. 2025)
The companion copyright case: Stephen Thaler sought to register a copyright with 'Creativity Machine' (his AI) as the author. The D.C. Circuit affirmed in March 2025 that the Copyright Act's human-authorship requirement is dispositive as a matter of statutory law. AI cannot be a copyright author under U.S. law.
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In effect Strength: stronger
Louis v. SafeRent
D. Mass. · Effective November 20, 2024 · Louis v. SafeRent Solutions, LLC, No. 1:22-cv-10800 (D. Mass.)
SafeRent agreed in November 2024 to a $2.275M settlement and a five-year ban on using its 'SafeRent Score' for housing-voucher applicants, after a class action alleged its AI tenant-screening tool systematically denied housing to Black and Hispanic Section 8 voucher holders. The first major AI tenant-screening Fair Housing Act settlement.
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In effect Strength: stronger
FTC Impersonation Rule (AI)
United States · Effective April 1, 2024 · 16 C.F.R. Part 461; 89 Fed. Reg. 15017
The FTC's Impersonation Rule lets the agency directly sue scammers who pretend to be a government agency or a real business — including those who use AI-cloned voices or generated images to do so. Civil penalties can reach $53,088 per violation. The FTC also issued a supplemental notice in February 2024 proposing to extend the rule to all individual impersonation.
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In effect Strength: stronger
FTC v. Rite Aid
FTC · Effective February 26, 2024 · FTC v. Rite Aid Corp., No. 2:23-cv-05023 (E.D. Pa. Dec. 19, 2023)
The FTC banned Rite Aid from using facial-recognition technology in its stores for five years after finding the pharmacy chain's FRT system falsely tagged customers — disproportionately women and people of color — as shoplifters, leading to wrongful detentions and humiliations.
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In effect Strength: stronger
TCPA (AI voice calls)
United States · Effective February 8, 2024 · 47 U.S.C. § 227; FCC 24-17
Robocalls using AI-cloned or AI-generated voices are treated like other 'artificial voice' calls: callers need your prior express consent, must identify themselves, and must offer opt-outs for telemarketing. You can personally sue violators for $500 to $1,500 per illegal call.
Frequently asked questions about AI laws in Dubuque, Iowa
Are there AI laws in Dubuque, Iowa?
What federal AI rules apply in Dubuque?
Does Iowa have an AI privacy law?
Are deepfakes illegal in Iowa?
Can my employer use AI to screen me for jobs in Dubuque?
How do I report an AI law violation in Dubuque?
Are facial recognition cameras allowed in Dubuque?
Is Dubuque regulated by Iowa's consumer privacy act?
Have we missed an AI rule in Dubuque?
This page is generated from our open civic dataset. If you know of a Dubuque ordinance, county rule, or local enforcement action we should add, email feedback@ailawsusa.com or submit a correction. Every entry must include a verifiable source.