AI Laws in Rockville, Maryland
AI Laws USA tracks 31 AI rules that apply to people and businesses in Rockville, Maryland: 10+ federal rules, 16 Maryland state-level rules, and 5 local Rockville/county ordinances. Coverage is strongest on automated decision-making, government use of AI, AI disclosure and transparency, and consumer protection. 20 of these rules are already in effect. Each entry below links to its official source.
Rockville local AI rules (and Montgomery County)
5 local AI rules specific to Rockville, Maryland or Montgomery County.
-
In effect Strength: limited
Montgomery County MD Public Schools
Rockville, MD · Effective August 29, 2024 · Montgomery County MD Public Schools — Guidelines for Use of Artificial Intelligence (2024-08-29)
MCPS issued districtwide AI guidelines authorizing teacher use of vetted tools (Google Gemini for Education, Microsoft Copilot), barring student entry of personal data into GenAI, requiring teacher disclosure when AI generates student feedback, and prohibiting AI-only disciplinary or grading decisions. Implemented via Board Policy IGS (Educational Technology) administered through BoardDocs.
-
In effect Strength: moderate
Montgomery County MD 18-month data center moratorium
Montgomery County, MD · Effective July 28, 2026 · Montgomery County, MD, Expedited Bill 19-26 and companion Zoning Text Amendment (adopted 11-0, July 28, 2026)
The Montgomery County, Maryland County Council voted unanimously 11-0 on July 28, 2026 to impose an 18-month moratorium on the issuance of any data center permits by the Department of Permitting Services. The moratorium runs through approximately January 28, 2028. The council simultaneously approved a Zoning Text Amendment permanently blocking any data center larger than 25 megawatts from being built in the county. The 18-month duration was a compromise between shorter and longer proposals. County Executive Marc Elrich had previously issued a 6-month executive-order moratorium in June 2026, and the council action codifies and extends that pause. Montgomery County includes Bethesda, Silver Spring, Germantown, and Rockville; it is the most populous county in Maryland and a significant corridor for data center development interest in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC.
-
In effect Strength: moderate
Six-month data-center permit moratorium (Montgomery County, MD)
Montgomery County, Maryland · Effective June 12, 2026 · Montgomery County (MD) County Executive Executive Order — six-month data-center permit moratorium (signed ~June 12, 2026)
Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich signed an Executive Order around June 12, 2026 enacting a six-month moratorium on new data-center building permits in Montgomery County, Maryland. Council Member Evan Glass had proposed the measure in May 2026; the County Executive acted on the recommendation. The moratorium pauses new data-center permitting while county officials review grid-cost impacts on ratepayers and potential effects on affordable housing near future Red Line infrastructure. The Atmosphere Data Centers project in Dickerson and any other in-process applications not yet approved would be paused.
-
In effect Strength: moderate
Montgomery County MD Police Directive FC 0627
Montgomery County, MD · Effective October 1, 2024 · MCPD Directive FC 0627 (Use of Facial Recognition Technology), posted 2024-10-01
Montgomery County Police Department Function Code 0627 — 'Use of Facial Recognition Technology' — is the operational directive governing MCPD's use of facial recognition. The directive was published October 1, 2024 on the official MCPD policy library. It is paired with Council Bill 33-22 (adopted Feb. 13, 2023) at the legislative level. Maryland's statewide HB 338/SB 182 (signed May 16, 2024) adds reasonable-suspicion-of-qualifying-offense and no-sole-basis-for-arrest constraints that apply to all state, county, and municipal law-enforcement agencies including MCPD.
-
In effect Strength: moderate
Montgomery County MD AI Governance Framework
Montgomery County, MD · Effective April 30, 2025 · Montgomery County Executive Order 2-25 (AI) (2025-04-30)
Montgomery County Executive Order establishing AI governance framework: requires AI inventory, impact assessment before deployment in resident-facing services, mandatory human review of consequential decisions, prohibition on facial-recognition use by county departments without Council authorization, and annual public reporting.
Maryland-level AI rules most relevant to Rockville
16 Maryland state rules apply to residents and businesses in Rockville. Showing the 8 most relevant to Rockville's local picture; 8 more are on the Maryland jurisdiction page.
-
In effect Strength: moderate
Maryland AI Ready Schools Act, SB 720 (2026)
Maryland · Effective June 1, 2026 · Md. S.B. 720 (2026 Reg. Sess.), Md. Laws ch. 634 (Artificial Intelligence Ready Schools Act), effective June 1, 2026
Maryland enacted the Artificial Intelligence Ready Schools Act on May 26, 2026, when Governor Wes Moore signed Senate Bill 720 into law as Chapter 634. It took effect on June 1, 2026. The law does five things. It requires the Maryland State Department of Education to give AI guidance and best practices to local education agencies, educators, parents and students. It requires every local school system to CREATE ITS OWN POLICY governing the use of artificial intelligence — that is the mandate that produced the wave of Maryland district AI policies in summer 2026. It establishes the Maryland AI Education Collaborative on Artificial Intelligence in K-12 Education to study, report on and make recommendations about AI use in each local school system; the Collaborative is temporary and ends May 31, 2028. It requires MSDE to develop and publish a RUBRIC and other evaluative tools so districts can assess AI products, and districts must use that rubric, rather than each district improvising its own vendor review. And it requires AI literacy to be built into the state's computer science and workforce preparation standards for kindergarten through grade twelve by June 1, 2027, alongside professional development for educators and school leaders. The compliance clock is the part districts feel: each local school system must have an aligned policy within 120 days of the release of the MSDE guidance. Caroline County's policy, indexed separately, is one of the resulting district policies.
-
In effect Strength: limited
The State of Maryland's Responsible AI Policy Implementation
Maryland · Effective May 1, 2025 · The State of Maryland's Responsible AI Policy Implementation Guidance (Version 1.0)
Maryland's Department of Information Technology guidance operationalizes the state's Responsible AI Policy, requiring agencies to designate an AI Lead, submit AI use cases through a risk-based intake process, complete Algorithmic Impact Assessments for high-risk systems, and document AI systems in a public inventory.
-
In effect Strength: moderate
Maryland EO 01.01.2026.16 data center framework (2026)
Maryland · Effective September 23, 2026 · Md. Exec. Order 01.01.2026.16 (Sept. 23, 2026)
Maryland Governor Wes Moore signed an executive order on September 23, 2026 that sets one statewide review process for large data centers, meaning those with 25 megawatts or more of peak electric demand. A new Maryland Data Center Accountability Task Force will judge each project on five principles: ratepayer and grid protection, economic benefit, community voice, environmental protection, and transparency. Each project gets a public rating of Aligned, Conditionally Aligned or Not Aligned. For projects rated Not Aligned, or that never ask for a rating, state agencies will not offer letters of support, advocacy or incentives, and will hold off on substantive permit review until local land-use approvals are in place. The order also bars executive agencies from signing non-disclosure agreements with data center developers, and creates a public Data Center Dashboard updated monthly.
-
In effect Strength: limited
Maryland Online Data Privacy Act
Maryland · Effective October 1, 2025 · 2024 Md. Laws ch. 440 (SB 541); Md. Code Ann., Com. Law §§ 14-4601–14-4626
Maryland's privacy law is stricter than most: it prohibits processing sensitive personal data unless strictly necessary for the requested service. Consumers can access, correct, delete, and port their data, and opt out of automated profiling and targeted advertising. AG enforcement began April 2026.
-
In effect Strength: limited
Maryland AI Governance Act (2024)
Maryland · Effective July 1, 2024 · 2024 Md. Laws ch. 496 (SB 818)
This law sets up a governance framework for how Maryland state government builds, buys, deploys, and uses artificial intelligence. Each state government unit must inventory the systems it uses that employ high-risk AI and conduct regular impact assessments. The Department of Information Technology is directed to develop and adopt policies covering the development, procurement, deployment, use, and ongoing assessment of high-risk AI systems.
-
In effect Strength: moderate
MD HB 1339 (Automated Decision Systems, 2026)
Maryland · Effective October 1, 2026 · Md. HB 1339 (2026 Reg. Sess.)
Maryland employers that use automated decision systems in hiring, promotion, or termination decisions must disclose to applicants and employees that an automated system is being used. Employers must also conduct and retain impact assessments evaluating whether their ADS produces disparate outcomes by race, sex, or other protected characteristics. Penalties run up to $10,000 per violation. Takes effect October 1, 2026.
-
In effect Strength: limited
Maryland HB 1563 (AI-denial reporting)
Maryland · Effective June 1, 2026 · 2026 Md. Laws ch. 165 (HB 1563); Md. Code, Ins. 15-10A-06
Among other emergency-room and post-acute care provisions, this law expands the quarterly report that carriers must submit to the Maryland Insurance Commissioner. The report must include the number of adverse decisions and whether an artificial intelligence, algorithm, or other software tool was used in making them. The Commissioner may use this information as a basis for examining the carrier.
-
In effect Strength: limited
MD DOI AI Bulletin
MD · Effective April 22, 2024 · Maryland Insurance Administration Bulletin 24-11 (2024-04-22)
The MD Department of Insurance adopted the NAIC Model Bulletin on Use of Artificial Intelligence Systems by Insurers. Insurers licensed in MD 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 Rockville, Maryland
These federal rules apply everywhere in the United States, including Rockville, Maryland. Showing the 10 strongest and most recent.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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 Rockville, Maryland
Are there AI laws in Rockville, Maryland?
What federal AI rules apply in Rockville?
Does Maryland have an AI privacy law?
Are deepfakes illegal in Maryland?
Can my employer use AI to screen me for jobs in Rockville?
How do I report an AI law violation in Rockville?
Are facial recognition cameras allowed in Rockville?
Is Rockville regulated by Maryland's consumer privacy act?
Have we missed an AI rule in Rockville?
This page is generated from our open civic dataset. If you know of a Rockville 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.