AI Laws in Santa Fe, New Mexico
AI Laws USA tracks 17 AI rules that apply to people and businesses in Santa Fe, New Mexico: 10+ federal rules, 7 New Mexico state-level rules (no Santa Fe-specific ordinances are indexed yet). Coverage is strongest on government use of AI, children's online safety, consumer data privacy, and automated decision-making. 5 of these rules are already in effect. Each entry below links to its official source.
Santa Fe local AI rules (and Santa Fe County)
No city- or county-specific AI ordinances are currently indexed for Santa Fe, New Mexico.
- No local entries yet: we don't currently index any Santa Fe-specific AI ordinances. Federal and New Mexico state rules still apply throughout the city. Have we missed something? Email feedback@ailawsusa.com.
New Mexico-level AI rules
7 New Mexico state rules apply to residents and businesses in Santa Fe. Sorted strongest first.
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In effect Strength: limited
New Mexico AI Guidance for K-12 Education 1.0
New Mexico Public Education Department · Effective May 1, 2025 · New Mexico AI Guidance for K-12 Education 1.0
New Mexico's education department published a K-12 AI handbook covering AI literacy, guiding principles for ethical use, and a framework for responsible AI integration in classrooms.
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Blocked / in litigation
New Mexico v. Meta public nuisance ruling (2026)
New Mexico · New Mexico v. Meta Platforms, No. D-101-CV-2023-02838 (N.M. 1st Jud. Dist., Aug. 10, 2026) (Biedscheid, J.)
On August 10, 2026 Judge Bryan Biedscheid of New Mexico's First Judicial District declared Meta's products a PUBLIC NUISANCE and ordered $567 million in damages. Combined with an earlier $375 million verdict, the total against Meta in this case reaches $942 MILLION. It is the largest judgment in this dataset and one of very few instances anywhere of public nuisance doctrine being applied to a social media product rather than to a physical hazard. But the most consequential part of the ruling is what the judge said he could NOT do. Biedscheid wrote that the court CANNOT order Meta to request children to submit personal data or be passively tracked online, EVEN FOR AGE-VERIFICATION PURPOSES — because New Mexico's Child's Online Privacy Act DATES FROM 1998 and does not authorise it. So a court willing to find a company liable for nearly a billion dollars still found itself unable to order the single remedy most directly aimed at the harm, because the governing statute predates the problem by a quarter-century. That is the clearest illustration in this dataset of what happens when enforcement outruns legislation. Attorney General Raúl Torrez responded by saying he would propose stronger age assurance legislation to the New Mexico Legislature, describing it as an opportunity to incorporate rapidly evolving technology. Meta disagrees with the ruling and plans to appeal both this award and the earlier verdict; against roughly $60 billion of 2025 profit the financial penalty is not, by itself, decisive.
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In effect Strength: limited
State of New Mexico: Generative AI Use Guidelines Policy (Ve
New Mexico · Effective June 1, 2025 · State of New Mexico: Generative AI Use Guidelines Policy (Version 1.0)
New Mexico's Department of Information Technology issued a signed policy leveraging the NIST AI Risk Management Framework to govern how executive agencies plan, develop, and deploy generative AI, including protection of non-public data.
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In effect Strength: limited
NM EO 2024-011
NM · Effective April 5, 2024 · N.M. Exec. Order No. 2024-011 (Apr. 5, 2024)
Governor Lujan Grisham's EO 2024-011 requires New Mexico state agencies to adopt NIST baselines covering AI, cloud, supply chain, and ransomware risks by November 1, 2024.
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In effect Strength: moderate
NM Land Commissioner blocks Project Jupiter pipeline (July 14, 2026)
NM · Effective July 14, 2026 · New Mexico State Land Office denial letter (July 14, 2026), Project Jupiter-related pipeline right-of-way on state trust land — second denial
New Mexico's State Land Commissioner has again refused to let a pipeline serving the proposed Project Jupiter data center cross state trust land. A denial letter dated July 14, 2026 marks the office's second rejection of the right-of-way request, cutting off a key infrastructure route for the project.
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Proposed / pending
NM Project Jupiter air permit hearing (Oct 19, 2026)
NM · NMED Project Jupiter air quality permit proceeding — public hearing Oct. 19, 2026; decision due Nov. 23, 2026
New Mexico's environmental regulator will hold a public hearing on October 19, 2026 before deciding whether to grant an air quality permit to Project Jupiter, a massive proposed data center project. A decision is due by November 23, 2026. The hearing gives residents a formal channel to weigh in on the project's air emissions (including from on-site generation).
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In effect Strength: limited
New Mexico Political Deepfake Law
New Mexico · Effective May 15, 2024 · 2024 N.M. Laws (HB 182), amending NMSA 1978 Campaign Reporting Act
New Mexico requires political campaigns to include a prominent disclaimer — 'This has been manipulated or generated by artificial intelligence' — on any campaign ad containing materially deceptive AI content, and criminalizes distributing materially deceptive political media.
Federal AI rules that apply in Santa Fe, New Mexico
These federal rules apply everywhere in the United States, including Santa Fe, New Mexico. 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 Santa Fe, New Mexico
Are there AI laws in Santa Fe, New Mexico?
What federal AI rules apply in Santa Fe?
Does New Mexico have an AI privacy law?
Are deepfakes illegal in New Mexico?
Can my employer use AI to screen me for jobs in Santa Fe?
How do I report an AI law violation in Santa Fe?
Are facial recognition cameras allowed in Santa Fe?
Is Santa Fe regulated by New Mexico's consumer privacy act?
Have we missed an AI rule in Santa Fe?
This page is generated from our open civic dataset. If you know of a Santa Fe 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.