Status as of August 19, 2026
Posts circulating in the security industry claim a new federal rule will make your video evidence inadmissible starting December 1, 2027. That claim is out of date. Short answers below, with the current status of the rulemaking.
Is Federal Rule of Evidence 707 in effect?
No. It’s a proposal. It has never been adopted, and as of August 2026 it is not on a confirmed path to adoption.
What does the proposed rule say?
The published text: “When machine-generated evidence is offered without an expert witness and would be subject to Rule 702 if testified to by a witness, the court may admit the evidence only if it satisfies the requirements of rule 702(a)-(d). This rule does not apply to the output of simple scientific instruments.”
Rule 702 is the existing standard for expert testimony. Rule 707 would apply that same reliability test to machine output when no expert is there to sponsor it.
Where does it stand right now?
The Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules voted 8 to 1 in May 2025 to publish the draft for public comment. Comments were open from August 15, 2025 to February 16, 2026, with hearings held in January 2026 and more than 70 written comments submitted.
At its May 7, 2026 meeting, the Advisory Committee declined to advance the rule in its current form. In June 2026 the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure reported that it “does not recommend action on the proposed Rule 707 at this time,” and that it had revised the proposal and planned further study.
The Advisory Committee has scheduled a mini-conference with technical experts and practitioners at its fall meeting on October 15, 2026.
Is the December 1, 2027 effective date real?
That was the earliest possible date if the rule had stayed on its original schedule, and it didn’t. Federal rules move on a fixed calendar: the Supreme Court transmits an adopted rule to Congress by May 1, and it takes effect the following December 1 absent congressional action. Because the proposal went back for revision in June 2026, December 2027 is no longer on track.
Does Rule 707 make surveillance footage inadmissible?
No. Nothing in the proposal was drafted to do that, and recorded video continues to be authenticated under Rule 901.
The draft never defines “machine-generated evidence,” and that gap is one of the main reasons it stalled. The American Association for Justice argued in its February 2026 comment that the rule as written would sweep in categories of routinely admitted evidence including surveillance footage, and asked the Committee to narrow it to machine learning and AI systems. The Committee’s stated target is machine output that performs the analytical work a human expert would otherwise do.
What about AI analytics, LPR reads, or facial recognition matches?
That’s the category the rule was aimed at. A license plate read, a facial recognition match, an object or behavior classification, an AI-generated video summary: these are machine conclusions rather than recordings, and they’re the kind of output Rule 707 was drafted to cover.
One condition matters. The rule would apply only when that output is offered without an expert witness. Where an expert testifies based on the output, Rule 702 already governs, and the Advisory Committee’s own discussion treated 707 as unnecessary in that situation.
Does Rule 707 solve the deepfake problem?
No, and its critics have said so throughout. Rule 707 would apply to evidence a party acknowledges was machine-generated, and it does nothing about fabricated evidence offered as genuine.
Deepfakes are the subject of a separate draft, Rule 901(c). Under that draft, a party challenging an item as a deepfake would first have to present evidence sufficient to support a finding of fabrication, after which the burden would shift to the proponent to show the item is authentic by a preponderance of the evidence. A bare assertion that something is a deepfake would not be enough. Rule 901(c) is also still under study rather than adopted.
Do these rules apply in state courts?
Rule 707 and Rule 901(c) are federal. Many states model their evidence codes on the Federal Rules and pick up amendments over time, so federal changes tend to travel eventually. Neither has been adopted federally yet.
Do I need to change my video system because of this?
No. No pending federal rule requires any specific recorder, hashing scheme, storage architecture, or watermarking standard. Any vendor telling you their hardware makes you compliant with Rule 707 is describing a rule that doesn’t exist.
What actually matters today
Courts have been handling AI-touched video for two years using the rules already on the books, and they’ve shown a willingness to exclude it. A Washington state court excluded AI-enhanced video in State v. Puloka. Judges have required disclosure of AI-generated exhibits. None of that waited for Rule 707.
The habits that hold up regardless of what the Committee decides in October:
- Know which outputs from your system are recordings and which are machine conclusions.
- Keep AI-enhanced or upscaled exports labeled and separate from the original recording.
- Be able to state what software, and what version, produced a given output.
- Keep export and access logs, and know how to produce them.
- Set retention long enough that footage survives the gap between an incident and a preservation letter.
That list is good evidence practice whether or not any new rule is ever adopted.
Where to check for updates
The Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules publishes its agenda books and meeting minutes at uscourts.gov. The next real checkpoint is the October 15, 2026 meeting. This page reflects the record as of August 19, 2026.
