AI Laws in Lexington-Fayette Urban County, Kentucky
AI Laws USA tracks 20 AI rules that apply to people and businesses in Lexington-Fayette Urban County, Kentucky: 10+ federal rules, 9 Kentucky state-level rules, and 1 local Lexington-Fayette Urban County ordinance. Coverage is strongest on government use of AI, consumer protection, consumer data privacy, and automated decision-making. 8 of these rules are already in effect. Each entry below links to its official source.
Lexington-Fayette Urban County local AI rules
1 local AI rule specific to Lexington-Fayette Urban County, Kentucky.
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In effect Strength: limited
Moratorium on data center permits, development plans and zon
Lexington-Fayette Urban County, KY · Effective June 9, 2026 · Moratorium on data center permits, development plans and zone changes
The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council unanimously enacted a moratorium pausing data center permits, development-plan acceptances and zone changes through October 31, 2026, while it drafts a zoning ordinance text amendment for data centers.
Kentucky-level AI rules most relevant to Lexington-Fayette Urban County
9 Kentucky state rules apply to residents and businesses in Lexington-Fayette Urban County. Showing the 8 most relevant to Lexington-Fayette Urban County's local picture; 1 more are on the Kentucky jurisdiction page.
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In effect Strength: moderate
Kentucky Beshear data center executive order (2026)
Kentucky · Effective August 6, 2026 · Ky. Exec. Order (Aug. 6, 2026) (data center development requirements)
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear issued an executive order on August 6, 2026 setting statewide conditions on data center development. It requires developers to demonstrate three things before Kentucky welcomes them. First, no detrimental impact on ratepayers or the environment — a developer must submit an energy plan to the Energy and Environment Cabinet showing ratepayers are protected. Second, payment of a fair share of local and school taxes. Third, genuine engagement with the local community. The sharpest provision is directed not at developers but at the regulator: the Public Service Commission is barred from allowing a utility to raise rates to recover costs created by data centers. That converts a general worry about who pays for the grid into a standing prohibition on shifting those costs onto other customers. Beshear was explicit that the order does not decide whether any given project proceeds — 'ultimately a very local decision on whether to welcome them' — but sets a floor every company must clear first. The order landed in the middle of Kentucky's municipal moratorium wave; Woodford County had banned data centers outright, and Winchester, Mercer County, Ludlow, London and Louisville Metro all adopted pauses in the same period.
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Proposed / pending
LG&E/KU CPCN Order Addressing Extremely High Load Factor Dat
Kentucky Public Service Commission (LG&E and KU) · LG&E/KU CPCN Order Addressing Extremely High Load Factor Data Center Tariff (Case 2025-00045)
The Kentucky PSC authorized LG&E/KU to build two gas plants for future data centers and endorsed an 'extremely high load factor' tariff under which new data centers using at least 100 MW must pay for at least 80% of their stated monthly consumption for 15 years, while deferring the cost-recovery mechanism to a later rate case.
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In effect Strength: limited
Commonwealth Office of Technology Enterprise Policy CIO-126:
Kentucky · Effective October 6, 2025 · Commonwealth Office of Technology Enterprise Policy CIO-126: Artificial Intelligence Policy
Kentucky's Commonwealth Office of Technology enterprise AI policy bans state agency use of high-risk AI systems, mandates human review before any consequential decision, and requires transparency disclaimers, bias controls, privacy protections, training, and vendor AI-use disclosure.
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In effect Strength: moderate
Kentucky HB 58 ALPR limits and 90-day retention (2026)
Kentucky · Effective July 15, 2026 · 2026 Ky. Acts Ch. 71 (HB 58)
Kentucky's new license plate reader law limits who can use plate-reader cameras and for what, restricts selling the data, and generally requires deleting captured plate data after 90 days unless it is needed for an investigation or a preservation request. Police agencies must adopt written policies and publish where their cameras are.
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In effect Strength: limited
Kentucky SB 4 (AI Governance)
Kentucky · Effective March 24, 2025 · 2025 Ky. Acts (SB 4)
Kentucky SB 4 establishes an AI governance framework for state government — agencies need approval before deploying AI, must conduct risk assessments, disclose AI use in decisions, and keep human oversight for consequential decisions. It also bans undisclosed AI-generated content falsely depicting people in political communications, with a civil remedy for those depicted.
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In effect Strength: limited
Kentucky Consumer Data Protection Act
Kentucky · Effective January 1, 2026 · 2024 Ky. Acts (HB 15); KRS ch. 367
Kentucky's privacy law took effect January 1, 2026, giving residents rights to access, correct, delete, and copy their personal data, and to opt out of data sales and targeted advertising. Businesses need opt-in consent for sensitive data including biometrics.
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Blocked / in litigation
KY AG v. Character.AI chatbot suit (2026)
Kentucky · Commonwealth of Kentucky v. Character Technologies, Inc. (Franklin Cir. Ct., filed Jan. 8, 2026)
Kentucky's attorney general sued the company behind Character.AI, saying its chatbot companions prey on children who can't tell real friends from artificial ones and have encouraged self-harm, suicide and isolation. The state asks the court to stop deceptive practices and impose penalties. It was described as the first state lawsuit against an AI chatbot company.
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In effect Strength: limited
KY DOI AI Bulletin
KY · Effective April 16, 2024 · Kentucky DOI Bulletin 2024-02 (2024-04-16)
The KY Department of Insurance adopted the NAIC Model Bulletin on Use of Artificial Intelligence Systems by Insurers. Insurers licensed in KY 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.
Federal AI rules that apply in Lexington-Fayette Urban County, Kentucky
These federal rules apply everywhere in the United States, including Lexington-Fayette Urban County, Kentucky. 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 Lexington-Fayette Urban County, Kentucky
Are there AI laws in Lexington-Fayette Urban County, Kentucky?
What federal AI rules apply in Lexington-Fayette Urban County?
Does Kentucky have an AI privacy law?
Are deepfakes illegal in Kentucky?
Can my employer use AI to screen me for jobs in Lexington-Fayette Urban County?
How do I report an AI law violation in Lexington-Fayette Urban County?
Are facial recognition cameras allowed in Lexington-Fayette Urban County?
Is Lexington-Fayette Urban County regulated by Kentucky's consumer privacy act?
Have we missed an AI rule in Lexington-Fayette Urban County?
This page is generated from our open civic dataset. If you know of a Lexington-Fayette Urban County 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.