Georgia CommonsSenate · Passed · 2025-2026 Regular Session
SB 213: "Fair Business Practices Act of 1975" commercial cheating services that target students and examinees seeking a professional license as an unlawful, unfair, and deceptive trade practice; ban
Last action July 1, 2025 · Effective Date
Senate Bill 213 bans commercial cheating services that write essays, exams, or other assignments for students or professional license examinees in Georgia, treating it as an unfair business practice enforceable only by the Attorney General.
The summaries below were written by an AI model (claude-sonnet-5) from the text of the bill and are not part of it. Quote the text, not the summary. The stored text is the Enrolled version, the latest the General Assembly's website lists.
In plain language
Georgia's Fair Business Practices Act of 1975 (O.C.G.A. § 10-1-393) lists specific business practices that count as unfair or deceptive. This bill adds a new category: commercial cheating services. It creates a new Code section, O.C.G.A. § 10-1-393.20, making it illegal for anyone to provide, for money or other compensation, a substantially completed piece of work such as an essay, thesis, report, or exam answer to a student or professional license examinee, when that work could reasonably count as an assessment task for credit. The ban covers students in Georgia public and private schools, home study programs, University System and Technical College System institutions, and anyone taking an exam for a professional license. Violations are treated as an unfair or deceptive trade practice, but only the Attorney General can enforce it; there is no private right of action. The bill exempts tutoring, research help, general information, and AI tools that respond to prompts without producing full finished assignments.
What the bill does
- Adds a new unfair or deceptive practice category to the Fair Business Practices Act (O.C.G.A. § 10-1-393) covering commercial cheating services.
- Creates O.C.G.A. § 10-1-393.20, making it illegal to sell or otherwise provide substantially completed assignments, essays, theses, or exam answers to students or license examinees.
- Limits enforcement of this new ban to the Attorney General only, blocking private lawsuits under the state's usual consumer protection remedy provision (O.C.G.A. § 10-1-399).
- Exempts tutoring, research assistance, general information, and AI tools or software that answer prompts without producing a finished assessment task.
- Specifies that disclaimers or contract language cannot shield a cheating service provider from liability.
Who it affects
Students in Georgia public and private schools and home study programs, students at University System of Georgia and Technical College System institutions, people taking exams for professional licenses, and companies or individuals who sell completed assignments or exam answers for money.
Why it matters
Companies that sell completed essays, projects, or exam answers to students or license candidates would face state legal action for the first time under this specific ban, while ordinary tutoring and AI writing assistance tools remain legal as long as they do not produce finished assignments.
Key provisions
- Section 1 adds a new paragraph (36) to O.C.G.A. § 10-1-393(b) making failure to comply with the new cheating-service ban an unfair or deceptive practice.
- Section 2 creates O.C.G.A. § 10-1-393.20, defining key terms like 'assessment task,' 'assignor,' 'student or examinee,' and 'work product.'
- Section 2(b) makes it unlawful to provide, for commercial purpose, a substantially completed work product that could count as an assessment task.
- Section 2(c) bars use of disclaimers or contracts to escape liability under the new law.
- Section 2(d) limits enforcement solely to the Attorney General, excluding private lawsuits.
- Section 2(e) exempts tutoring, research help, general information, and certain AI or software tools from the ban.
- Section 3 amends O.C.G.A. § 10-1-399 to carve out an exception for the new law within the state's general consumer protection enforcement provisions.
From the bill
“It shall be unlawful for any person, for a commercial purpose, to provide or otherwise cause to be provided any work product to a student or examinee in a substantially completed form that could, under the circumstances, reasonably be considered as being, or forming a part of, an assessment task.”
“enforcement against such violations shall only be by public enforcement by the Attorney General pursuant to this part and shall not be enforceable through a private right of action under Code Section 10-1-399”
“No disclaimer or contractual language between a person providing work product and a student or examinee shall exempt such person from the provisions of subsection (b) of this Code section.”
Status timeline
- Effective Date
- Act 300
- Senate Date Signed by Governor (Senate)
- Senate Sent to Governor (Senate)
- House Passed/Adopted (House)
- House Third Readers (House)
- House Committee Favorably Reported (House)
- House Second Readers (House)
Show full history (17 actions)
- House First Readers (House)
- Senate Passed/Adopted As Amended (Senate)
- Senate Third Read (Senate)
- Senate Taken from Table (Senate)
- Senate Tabled (Senate)
- Senate Read Second Time (Senate)
- Senate Committee Favorably Reported (Senate)
- Senate Read and Referred (Senate)
- Senate Hopper (Senate)
Sponsors
- Kay Kirkpatrick (R, SD-32)
- Bill Cowsert (R, SD-46)
- John Albers (R, SD-56)
- Michael 'Doc' Rhett (D, SD-33)
- Carden Summers (R, SD-13)
- Frank Ginn (R, SD-47)
- Steve Gooch (R, SD-51)
- Randy Robertson (R, SD-29)
- Ed Harbison (D, SD-15)
- Greg Dolezal (R, SD-27)
- Max Burns (R, SD-23)
- Chuck Martin (R, HD-49)
Votes
- Senate voteMarch 6, 2025
53 yea, 1 nay (2 not voting, 0 excused)
- House voteMarch 31, 2025
155 yea, 7 nay (5 not voting, 13 excused)
Topics
- academic cheating
- consumer protection law
- professional licensing
- education policy
- artificial intelligence in schools