AI Laws in Wilmington, Delaware
AI Laws USA tracks 21 AI rules that apply to people and businesses in Wilmington, Delaware: 10+ federal rules, 11 Delaware state-level rules (no Wilmington-specific ordinances are indexed yet). Coverage is strongest on consumer protection, government use of AI, data-center siting and energy, and automated decision-making. 11 of these rules are already in effect. Each entry below links to its official source.
Wilmington local AI rules (and New Castle County)
No city- or county-specific AI ordinances are currently indexed for Wilmington, Delaware.
- No local entries yet: we don't currently index any Wilmington-specific AI ordinances. Federal and Delaware state rules still apply throughout the city. Have we missed something? Email feedback@ailawsusa.com.
Delaware-level AI rules most relevant to Wilmington
11 Delaware state rules apply to residents and businesses in Wilmington. Showing the 8 most relevant to Wilmington's local picture; 3 more are on the Delaware jurisdiction page.
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In effect Strength: stronger
Delaware HB 233 large-load rate class (2026)
Delaware · Effective August 26, 2026 · Del. H.S. 1 for H.B. 233, 153rd Gen. Assemb., 85 Del. Laws c. 440 (2026)
Delaware House Bill 233 creates a separate utility rate class for large energy-use facilities such as data centers, and requires them to pay the full cost of the infrastructure upgrades they make necessary rather than spreading those costs across residential and small-business customers. This is the core cost-allocation move: once a hyperscale customer sits in its own rate class, the arithmetic that would otherwise socialise its grid costs no longer applies to it. Governor Matt Meyer signed it on August 26, 2026 as part of a four-bill Energy Consumer Protection package, alongside HB 445's clean-generation requirement, HB 310's removal of tax credits for these facilities, and SB 326's limits on what Delmarva Power can recover from ratepayers. All four took effect immediately. Delaware's approach is notable for treating the problem as four separate levers pulled at once — cost class, power supply, tax treatment and utility capital recovery — rather than a single omnibus statute.
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In effect Strength: stronger
Delaware HB 445 bring-your-own-generation mandate (2026)
Delaware · Effective August 26, 2026 · Del. H.B. 445, 153rd Gen. Assemb. (2026)
Delaware House Bill 445 requires large energy-use facilities to produce or secure 100 percent of the power they need, including a share of clean or renewable energy, so they do not strain the public grid. The Sierra Club called it a first-of-its-kind clean energy mandate for hyperscale data centers, and the distinguishing feature is that it does not merely charge large users more for grid power — it requires them to bring their own. That changes the question from who pays for new generation to who builds it. A facility cannot satisfy the requirement by accepting a higher tariff; it has to arrange supply. Combined with HB 233, which puts large users in their own rate class and makes them pay the full cost of infrastructure upgrades, Delaware has closed both the cost-shifting route and the capacity-strain route in the same package. Governor Matt Meyer signed it on August 26, 2026 with three companion bills, all effective immediately.
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In effect Strength: moderate
Delaware SB 326 utility capital expenditure oversight (2026)
Delaware · Effective August 26, 2026 · Del. S.B. 326, 153rd Gen. Assemb. (2026)
Delaware Senate Bill 326 places limits and enhanced oversight on the non-mandatory capital expenditures that for-profit monopoly utilities such as Delmarva Power can recover from standard residential ratepayers. It is the broadest of the four bills Governor Matt Meyer signed on August 26, 2026, because it is not confined to data centers — it constrains what a regulated monopoly can charge households for discretionary capital spending generally. Its inclusion in the Energy Consumer Protection package reflects the underlying concern: if large-load customers drive a utility's capital programme, the recovery question reaches every residential bill, and limiting discretionary recovery closes a route that a data-center-specific rule would leave open.
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In effect Strength: moderate
Delaware HB 310 large-load tax credit bar (2026)
Delaware · Effective August 26, 2026 · Del. H.B. 310, 153rd Gen. Assemb. (2026)
Delaware House Bill 310 prohibits large energy-use facilities from qualifying for job-creation business tax credits and license fee reductions. The logic is straightforward and rarely legislated: incentives designed to reward employment should not flow to facilities whose defining characteristic is enormous resource consumption and comparatively few permanent jobs. Rather than argue the point project by project, Delaware removed the eligibility. It was signed by Governor Matt Meyer on August 26, 2026 as one of four bills in the Energy Consumer Protection package, effective immediately. Most states in 2026 addressed data centers through moratoriums, zoning or utility cost allocation; disqualifying them from economic development incentives is a distinct lever, and one that operates on the state's own fiscal exposure rather than on siting or rates.
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In effect Strength: limited
DE DOI AI Bulletin
DE · Effective February 5, 2025 · Delaware Domestic and Foreign Insurers Bulletin No. 148 (2025-02-05)
The DE Department of Insurance adopted the NAIC Model Bulletin on Use of Artificial Intelligence Systems by Insurers. Insurers licensed in DE 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
Delaware Privacy Law (DPDPA)
Delaware · Effective January 1, 2025 · 6 Del. C. § 12D-101 et seq. (2023 DE HB 154)
Delaware residents can access, correct, delete, and port their personal data, and opt out of targeted advertising, data sales, and profiling used in solely automated decisions with legal effects. Applies at low thresholds (35,000 consumers).
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In effect Strength: limited
Delaware AI Medical-Titles Ban (no AI 'doctors')
Delaware · Effective April 23, 2026 · Del. H.B. 191, 153rd Gen. Assemb. (2025-2026), 85 Del. Laws c. 250 (amending 24 Del. C.)
This law makes clear that artificial intelligence and other nonhuman entities cannot be licensed or certified to practice medicine or nursing in Delaware. It bars AI agents from being licensed as a physician, physician assistant, professional nurse, advanced practice nurse, or practical nurse, and from using the professional titles or abbreviations tied to those roles, such as 'Dr.,' 'MD,' 'RN,' 'APRN,' or 'PA.' The intent is to prevent AI tools from misrepresenting themselves as licensed human clinicians, while still allowing AI to be used as a support tool by licensed professionals.
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In effect Strength: limited
Delaware AI Commission Act (government AI inventory)
Delaware · Effective July 17, 2024 · Del. H.B. 333, 152nd Gen. Assemb. (2024); 29 Del. C. ch. 90C
This law creates the Delaware Artificial Intelligence Commission, a state body charged with studying how artificial intelligence is used in Delaware government and recommending policies for its safe and responsible use. One of the Commission's required tasks is to take a full inventory of every generative-AI tool in use across the state's executive, legislative, and judicial agencies and to flag high-risk applications. The Commission issues recommendations but does not itself regulate private companies or impose penalties. It is scheduled to sunset ten years after enactment unless lawmakers extend it.
Federal AI rules that apply in Wilmington, Delaware
These federal rules apply everywhere in the United States, including Wilmington, Delaware. 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 Wilmington, Delaware
Are there AI laws in Wilmington, Delaware?
What federal AI rules apply in Wilmington?
Does Delaware have an AI privacy law?
Are deepfakes illegal in Delaware?
Can my employer use AI to screen me for jobs in Wilmington?
How do I report an AI law violation in Wilmington?
Are facial recognition cameras allowed in Wilmington?
Is Wilmington regulated by Delaware's consumer privacy act?
Have we missed an AI rule in Wilmington?
This page is generated from our open civic dataset. If you know of a Wilmington 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.