AB 2025: Disclosing Digitally Altered Photos in Rental Ads

What it requires

• If a rental ad or other promotional material uses a digitally altered image, it must carry a reasonably conspicuous disclosure, on or next to the image, that the image has been altered.
• The posting must also include the original, unaltered photo, or a link, URL, or QR code to a public web page that clearly identifies it. If you use a link, the disclosure must say the originals can be viewed there.
• “Digitally altered” covers images fully generated by AI and photos edited to add, remove, or change elements such as furniture, appliances, flooring, walls, paint color, landscaping, views through windows, utility poles, or neighboring properties.
• Routine edits don’t count: lighting, sharpening, white balance, color correction, angle, straightening, cropping, and exposure, as long as they don’t change how the property is represented.
• Images and renderings that were not originally taken with a camera or other capture device are exempt from the unaltered-original requirement.
• The rule applies to anyone advertising a rental, with no lease-length limit. For a real estate licensee, a violation is also a violation of their licensing law, and false-advertising laws still apply.

Owner checklist

• Ask your photographer or listing vendor whether any photos are virtually staged or edited beyond basic adjustments
• Label each altered photo on or next to the image
• Keep the original photos and include them, or a link to them, in the same listing
• Check every place the listing appears, not just your own website