Lawmakers push for law reform after Lancaster Country Day AI incident

October 7, 2025 | 5am

Written by Ashley Stalnecker/LNP | Lancaster Online

Three Lancaster County lawmakers are working on a bill that would require school administrators to report any artificially generated sexually explicit images of minors they discover, regardless of whether the perpetrator is a minor or not.

The push for such legislation comes in the wake of a high-profile case at Lancaster Country Day School, where two male students were charged in December 2024 with creating and sharing hundreds of doctored images and videos depicting dozens of their classmates in sexually explicit situations.

These cases have not yet reached trial. Eric Yarber, a spokesman for the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office, said in August that an investigation was underway into charges facing both men, including criminal conspiracy, child sexual abuse, possession of child pornography and dissemination of obscene material to minors.

State Sens. James Malone and Nikki Rivera, both Democrats, and Republican Sen. Scott Martin said the testimony of one Lancaster Country Day student helped influence separate efforts to create legislation to better address the issue.

Mandated reporters, including school staff, are legally required to report suspected child abuse, but after Country Day administrators learned of the doctored sexual images through an anonymous tip in November 2023, they failed to report them as suspected child abuse.

“Honestly, I feel that the immediate confusion was that the adults in the room did not immediately contact the police,” Malone said Monday. “Whether you know it or not, every single day, six days, 10 days, when you become a victim of that kind of behavior is reprehensible…I don’t think this should have happened at all.”

At the time, the district attorney said these crimes did not meet the current definition of child abuse under mandatory reporting laws. Harms in which both parties are minors are exempt from the definition of child abuse, with the exception of a series of crimes such as rape, involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, sexual assault, aggravated forcible indecency, and forcible indecency.

“Lancaster Country Day School considers the many ways technology can be misused and the impact it has on our students,” school spokeswoman Maddie Pontz said in an emailed statement Monday. “We have policies in place to address these issues and support legislative efforts to help all schools protect students from the risks posed by ever-evolving technology.”

Read: This is a big year for artificial intelligence in Pennsylvania, lawmakers say

Lancaster County legislators propose amendment

Malone’s bill, introduced in late September, would include “all instances of images of child sexual abuse” in the mandatory reporting law’s definition of child abuse.

“We hope this means that going forward, adults trained in reporting laws will recognize that AI-generated images are bad and we have to do something about them,” Malone said.

Rivera said her proposed bill would largely match Malone’s bill.

“As a former school teacher myself and a commissioned reporter, I want to say very clearly and simply to school officials that if you see something, you should say something, and of course we already know this, and that should apply to child-on-child accidents,” said Rivera, a former Manheim Township School Board member. “We want to make sure we close the loop when it comes to these types of issues.”

Martin, along with Sen. Tracy Pennyquick (R-Montgomery), announced plans to introduce legislation that would amend mandatory reporting laws to include child sexual abuse materials created using artificial intelligence.

If Pennycuick’s bill had been enacted last year, Country Day students would not have had to go through “an additional six months of suffering” after administrators were first tipped off about the creation of the explicit images, Pennycuick said.

In the Country Day incident, the AI-generated images were first reported to administrators in November 2023, but were not disclosed to some affected students until May of the following year, and others were not informed until November 2024, when they were asked to confirm their identities in the images.

“Getting this bill passed is a top priority,” Pennycuick said. “We want to make sure that AI-generated (child sexual abuse material) doesn’t go any further and that mandated reporters are actually reporting what they’re supposed to report.”

Pennycuick noted that the bill was written with the direct involvement of stakeholders like Lancaster County Day students.

She said the main difference between Malone’s and Pennycuick’s proposals lies in where the changes to the Compulsory Reporter Act would be placed. The two have not yet discussed the proposed legislation with each other, but Pennycuick said they will likely do so soon.

Pennycuick added that if the bill were introduced, there would be “less room for confusion and opportunity for circumvention.”

“Protecting children from emerging threats in the digital world is critical,” Martin said in a statement via text message on Monday. “Senator Pennycuick, Sen. (Lisa) Baker, and I have been working carefully with stakeholders and families on this specific issue for many months, and we hope to introduce comprehensive legislation soon to address reporting requirements.”

Kathleen Palm, founder of the Children’s Justice Center, a Berks County advocacy group, said the fact that there is a bipartisan effort to listen to survivors and identify the best amendments to mandatory reporting laws is a positive sign.

“The important thing is that they both have the same goal, which is to make it clear that anything that produces this kind of harmful material, like AI-generated pornography, is reportable,” Palm said.

Read: How should Lancaster Country Day School deal with deepfakes? Pennsylvania law explained

Changes in the law regarding reporting obligations

In addition to including instances of child sexual abuse images in mandatory reporting laws, Palm said the law should go a step further by requiring lawmakers to revisit the language annually or biennially to ensure it is still working to protect children.

The law was last reviewed in 2014, when former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted of child molestation.

And, Palm said, sometimes lawmakers make changes to state crime laws that aren’t immediately reflected in mandatory laws or child protective services laws.

In October 2024, state law regarding the unlawful distribution of intimate images was updated to include definitions of artificial intelligence, artificially generated sexual depictions, generative artificial intelligence, and photo editing software. The Child Sexual Abuse Criminal Offenses Act has also been updated to define and include “artificially generated child sexual abuse materials.”

However, reporting laws have not yet been amended to reflect these changes.

Pennycuick said he agrees with Palm that mandatory reporting laws should be reviewed regularly to keep up with criminal law changes and technological innovations, and that his bill would require lawmakers to return to the law every two to three years.

“I think we need to stay on top of changes and advancements in technology, especially when it comes to AI now, and the law will need to keep up with that,” Pennycuick said.

Rivera said he would not include language in his proposed bill to periodically review mandatory reporting laws, but added: “It’s definitely our responsibility as legislators to face and address the issues that we have and what’s happening to our people.”

Rivera said there are currently no plans to expand the list of people who qualify as mandatory reporters in the bill, but he believes the law should apply to all adults.

“I sincerely hope that all adults take responsibility and report crimes against children to the authorities and to Childline,” Rivera said. “That’s what my moral book expects of me. I expect that of myself, and I want all adults to take that responsibility when it comes to protecting children from crimes against them.”

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