Control
An advertising image altered with AI or editing software is published without a disclosure on or next to it and access to the unaltered original
When a listing or advertising tool alters a property image (virtual staging, object removal, sky or landscape replacement) in a way that changes what is represented, the published image carries a reasonably conspicuous statement that it has been altered, on or adjacent to it, and a link or QR code to a publicly accessible page that shows and identifies the original, unaltered image (or the original is posted with it).
Informational data, not legal advice. Summaries and rules have not been reviewed by a lawyer: always verify official law text for decisions. A suggested guard is intended to address each rule; adding it is not a statement of compliance to that law.
Reach
Law in force in California (US-CA).
Trust and provenance
How far the rules this guard addresses have been checked. Each rule links to its provision, with its citation, official text and its own panel.
- This control
- Audit-grade: meets all 3 checks of the TwinEthos audit standard that apply to it.
- Lanes
- Binding law — in force 1
- Verification
- Sources last verified 4 Oct 2026; each provision states how.
- Data release
- Data release 2026.10.04.3, data as of 4 Oct 2026, schema 0.3.10.
- Legal review
- None of the 1 rule has been reviewed by a lawyer; no TwinEthos rule has been legally reviewed yet. Treat each as research to check against the official text; it is not legal advice. Open questions for counsel on them: 1.
- Audit standard
- 1 of 1 rule audit-grade. The audit standard is TwinEthos's own quality bar for provenance, dates, applicability, detectors, fixtures, remediation and licences; it is not a legal review.
- Detectors
- 1 detector, all experimental: written from the rule's text and not yet measured for precision on real code, so treat a hit as a lead to verify. Each provision lists its detectors' known limits.
The guard to add
Mark every AI-altered listing image as altered, on or next to the image, and link it to the stored, clearly identified original.
The image-edit step keeps the original and marks the output as altered; the listing renderer and the MLS or portal export add the statement 'This image has been digitally altered. View the original at <url>' (or a QR code) on or adjacent to each altered image, and the original stays published at that URL; common adjustments that do not change the representation (lighting, cropping, colour correction) are not marked.
Where it goes: 9 AI output handling, 1 application source code, 14 user-facing text.
What reviewers look for: an altered flag set by the AI edit or staging call, an original-image URL stored with it, and a renderer or export that prints the altered statement with the link next to every flagged image.
Example (Python listing service + OpenAI images), before:
staged = client.images.edit(model='gpt-image-1', image=open(photo, 'rb'), prompt='virtually stage this living room')
listing.photos.append(upload(staged))After:
staged = client.images.edit(model='gpt-image-1', image=open(photo, 'rb'), prompt='virtually stage this living room')
original_url = upload(photo, public=True)
listing.photos.append({'url': upload(staged), 'altered': True, 'original_url': original_url,
'disclosure': f'This image has been digitally altered. View the unaltered original at {original_url}'})Engineering guidance, not legal advice. Each provision below may add its own details (a cadence, a deadline, a required notice element): open it for those.
Every rule this guard addresses
Binding law — in force (1)
- California (US-CA)
- Mark an AI-altered real estate listing image as altered and link the unaltered original (California AB 723) Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code 10140.8(a)(1) · AI-adjacent law
Informational data, not legal advice. Summaries are TwinEthos's own words and rules have not been reviewed by a lawyer: check the official text before relying on any of it. A guard addresses an item; adding it is not a statement that your code meets any law.