2025 · Regular session · House bill
HB783
HB783 creates a civil claim for a person injured by certain online impersonation.
Official caption: Relating to civil liability for online impersonation.
Official report lists House author(s): Lalani, Darby. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.
Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.
Bill highlights
Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.
- HB783 creates a civil claim for a person injured by certain online impersonation.
- The definition covers using someone's name, voice, signature or likeness in visual material on a social media platform without consent.
- There is no liability under this chapter when a purpose of the impersonation is satire or parody.
- A successful claimant must receive actual damages, including related counseling, identity-theft or libel expenditures.
- On a motion by a claimant depicted in the impersonation, a court may grant a temporary restraining order or temporary or permanent injunction to stop it.
What does it do?
HB783 creates a civil claim for a person injured by certain online impersonation. Liability requires more than an unwanted mention or image: the defendant must knowingly use the impersonation to create a false identity with intent to harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten the injured person, and the impersonation must be virtually indistinguishable from an actual person to a reasonable person. Final law
The definition covers using someone’s name, voice, signature or likeness in visual material on a social media platform without consent. For a minor, the relevant consent is that of a parent, legal guardian or managing conservator. “Visual material” includes photographs, video and digital image material; HB783 borrows that definition from the Penal Code without importing the separate criminal offense’s sexual-content elements. “Social media platform” uses the existing definition for public websites or apps with accounts and user communication, excluding email, internet-service providers and certain primarily publisher-selected-content services with incidental interactive features. Visual-material definition · Platform definition
There is no liability under this chapter when a purpose of the impersonation is satire or parody. It also does not apply to law-enforcement agencies or employees acting within their employment in investigating internet crimes. The chapter may not be interpreted to impose liability on an interactive computer service, as defined in federal Section 230, for another person’s content.
A successful claimant must receive actual damages, including related counseling, identity-theft or libel expenditures. The impersonator’s attributable profits may be considered in calculating those damages. The claimant may also recover exemplary damages of at least $500; that is not an automatic $500 payment to everyone making an allegation. Courts must award costs and reasonable attorney’s fees to the prevailing party, which can be a defendant as well as a claimant.
On a motion by a claimant depicted in the impersonation, a court may grant a temporary restraining order or temporary or permanent injunction to stop it. This new claim supplements other legal remedies rather than replacing them. HB783 took effect September 1, 2025 and creates civil liability, not a new criminal offense. Official history
What changed along the way?
The introduced bill and House committee version used their own photograph, readily-identifiable and social-media definitions. They did not include the final reasonable-person/virtually-indistinguishable requirement, and protected satire or parody only when it was the sole purpose.
The House adopted Little’s amendment, changing “the sole” purpose to “a” purpose, broadening the satire/parody exception. The Senate adopted Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa’s amendment, replacing the definitions with the visual-material/social-media-platform framework and adding the virtually-indistinguishable test. Both changes remain in the final law.
The amendment index lists those two adopted amendments. The House concurred May 29, and the governor signed June 20. There was no conference rewrite.
For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.
Official bill versions
Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.
Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?
People harmed by qualifying impersonation gain a specific route to damages and court orders. The intent, injury and resemblance requirements and the satire/parody exception constrain that remedy; the law is not a blanket prohibition on criticism, caricature or all unauthorized online references.
Defendants can face damages, orders to stop the impersonation and litigation costs. Claimants also face financial risk because the fee award goes to the prevailing party, not exclusively to victims who sue. The act does not guarantee successful recovery or eliminate the need to prove its requirements.
The latest fiscal note says state and local fiscal effects cannot be determined because the number of new court cases is unknown. It does not establish that court costs are zero or quantify expected private damage awards.
Official sources
- Bill history and latest recorded action
- Bill versions, analyses and fiscal notes
- Action history and votes
- Amendment index
Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.