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Photographs, videos, text messages, emails, social media posts, and audio recordings can play an important role in New Jersey divorce and family law cases. A parent may produce a video during a child custody dispute. A spouse may submit text messages in a domestic violence proceeding. A recording may be offered to show threatening behavior, harassment, or a violation of a court order.
But artificial intelligence is changing the landscape of digital evidence in New Jersey family court.
Today, increasingly sophisticated technology can create or manipulate photographs, videos, audio, text messages, and even a person’s voice. These AI-generated or altered materials, often referred to as “deepfakes,” can appear remarkably authentic.
As AI technology becomes more accessible, an important question is emerging in New Jersey family law litigation: What happens when seeing, or hearing, something is no longer enough to know that it is real?
A deepfake is digital content that has been created or manipulated using artificial intelligence to convincingly depict something that did not actually occur.
AI technology can potentially be used to make it appear that a person:
The technology is advancing quickly, and creating convincing fake content no longer necessarily requires advanced technical expertise.
That presents significant concerns for AI evidence in New Jersey family law cases, where cases can turn on credibility and where digital evidence is frequently used to establish what happened between spouses, parents, or other family members.
Family law cases frequently involve intensely personal factual disputes. Unlike some litigation involving primarily contracts or business records, a divorce, child custody, parenting time, or domestic violence case may require a court to determine what happened during interactions that occurred privately.
Digital evidence can therefore become extremely important.
Consider a New Jersey child custody dispute in which one parent produces a video that appears to show the other parent behaving dangerously around a child. Or a domestic violence matter involving an audio recording that appears to contain a threat. Or a divorce in which screenshots seem to establish communications about hidden assets.
Historically, a photograph, video, or recording could be compelling because it appeared to provide an objective record of an event. AI complicates that assumption.
A realistic-looking video is not necessarily proof that the event depicted occurred. A voice recording may not necessarily establish that the person whose voice is heard spoke those words.
At the same time, the existence of deepfake technology does not mean that genuine digital evidence should automatically be viewed as fake.
Courts must increasingly confront both sides of the problem: fabricated evidence may be presented as genuine, while authentic evidence may be challenged simply by alleging that AI could have created it.
New Jersey’s existing evidence rules provide an important starting point.
Under N.J.R.E. 901, a party seeking to introduce an item into evidence must present sufficient evidence to support the finding that the item is what the party claims it to be.
New Jersey courts have already applied traditional authentication principles to electronic evidence. In State v. Hannah, 448 N.J. Super 78, 88-89 (App. Div. 2026) for example, the Appellate Division addressed authentication of social media evidence and concluded that New Jersey’s traditional authentication rules could be applied to that type of electronic evidence.
The New Jersey Supreme Court Committee on the Rules of Evidence has similarly recognized that electronically stored information can be evaluated through the existing authentication framework.
Those principles take on even greater importance in the age of generative AI and deepfakes.
A party offering a photograph, recording, video, screenshot, text message, social media post, or other digital material may need to establish where it came from, who created or captured it, how it was preserved, and whether there is reason to believe it was altered.
Simply producing a screenshot or playing a recording does not necessarily resolve questions about its authenticity.
The appropriate method will depend on the evidence and circumstances of the case. Authentication of digital evidence is highly fact specific.
Relevant information may include:
The important point is that authenticating electronic evidence may increasingly depend on more than what a judge can see or hear on the surface.
Anyone involved in a New Jersey divorce, custody dispute, domestic violence proceeding, or other family law matter should be cautious about altering potential digital evidence, even for seemingly innocent reasons.
Cropping a photograph, editing a video, annotating a screenshot, forwarding a file through multiple applications, or repeatedly converting a file from one format to another may eliminate information that could later help establish its origin or authenticity.
If a photograph, text conversation, voicemail, video, social media post, email, or other electronic communication may become important to a case, preserving the original material and the device or account from which it came may be critical.
Before deleting, editing, modifying, or reorganizing potentially relevant electronic information, speak with your New Jersey family law attorney about how it should be preserved.
A person who believes that purported evidence in a New Jersey family law case has been fabricated or materially altered using AI should raise the issue with their attorney as soon as possible.
Do not assume that something cannot be challenged simply because it looks convincing.
Depending upon the circumstances, an attorney may consider examining the original file, requesting information about how the evidence was obtained, reviewing metadata, seeking related communications or records, conducting appropriate discovery, or consulting a forensic expert.
The appropriate response will depend on the evidence, the issues before the court, and the significance of the disputed material.
AI creates the opposite problem as well.
As public awareness of deepfakes increases, someone confronted with damaging, but authentic evidence may claim that it was artificially generated or manipulated.
That makes careful preservation even more important.
Keeping original files, maintaining complete message threads, preserving devices where appropriate, and documenting the source of evidence can help an attorney address a later authenticity challenge.
The existence of AI does not make all digital evidence unreliable. Instead, it makes the ability to demonstrate where evidence came from and whether it has been altered increasingly important.
Artificial intelligence is not merely a future concern for the legal profession.
In March 2026, the New Jersey Supreme Court encouraged attorneys and law firms to develop and periodically update policies governing the responsible use of AI and related technologies. The Judiciary emphasized issues including understanding AI’s limitations, protecting confidential information, reviewing AI-assisted work for accuracy, and recognizing risks created by third-party use of the technology.
Attorneys remain responsible for their professional obligations and the accuracy of their work regardless of whether AI technology was involved.
As AI continues to evolve, questions surrounding the creation, preservation, authentication, and reliability of digital evidence are likely to become increasingly significant in New Jersey divorce, custody, domestic violence, and other family law cases.
Technology may be changing, but the importance of credible evidence is not.
In New Jersey family court, photographs, recordings, videos, text messages, emails, social media posts, and other electronic evidence can play a significant role in divorce, child custody, parenting time, domestic violence, and other family law proceedings.
Artificial intelligence adds a new layer of complexity because digital evidence can potentially be created or manipulated in ways that are increasingly difficult to detect simply by looking at it.
For individuals involved in family law litigation, the lesson is straightforward: preserve original evidence, be cautious about modifying digital files, and do not assume that something is authentic, or fabricated, based solely on how convincing it appears.
There is never a “right” time for divorce or another difficult family law matter. But when questions arise about your family, your future, and even whether the evidence in front of you can be believed, compassionate legal guidance matters.
At Lawrence Law Divorce & Family Lawyers, we approach every family law matter with empathy, experience, and excellence. If you have questions about AI-generated evidence, deepfakes, digital evidence, or another issue affecting your New Jersey divorce or family law case, contact Lawrence Law Divorce & Family Law, 908-645-1000 to schedule a consultation and learn how we can help.
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