Explained: Celebrities Go To Court Over 'Personality Rights'. What About Common People?

Several Bollywood celebrities including Aishwarya Rai, Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Hritik Roshan, and Karan Johar have approached the Delhi High Court to seek protection of their personality rights against individuals or businesses using their personality, image and voices, among others, without their consent for commercial gains.

All the celebrities have also sought protection against AI-generated content and deepfakes going around using their images and voices to spread misleading news and stories about them.

Here's all you need to know about the challenges to content regulation in India, the current laws to protect personality rights, and whether you should be concerned.

Why Are They Going To Court

While Akshay Kumar and Asha Bhosle approached the Bombay High Court recently with similar petitions, a majority of the cases are coming to the Delhi High Court even though most celebrities are living in Mumbai.

Mimansa Ambastha, a Delhi-based technology and privacy law expert, told NDTV that since personality rights are not statutorily protected in India, celebrities turn to the judiciary to protect such rights, which include the right to control the commercial use of their identity and prevent the improper use of their likeness and brand.

"The Delhi High Court has emerged as the preferred choice for most celebs on account of several previous important judgments that set the tone on recognising and enforcing personality rights," Ambastha said.

Not only has the Delhi High Court been the first to recognise these rights, it has also passed several notable orders ensuring swift takedown of deepfakes, AI-generated content, and fake social media accounts, etc, she said.

While other high courts across the country have their own intellectual property rights division, the Delhi High Court and the Madras High Court were the first to get a dedicated wing. This naturally has more precedents from the judgments passed so far, which can ensure faster relief.

What Law Governs Content Regulation In India

Content regulation across the globe has entered a new era with the rise of generative AI and the proliferation of deepfakes.

"Deepfakes particularly target celebrities and are increasingly being used to create fake news, morph faces into sexually explicit content and even recreate works of dead artists (mis)using their face, voice, likeness, etc," Ambastha, who deals exclusively in privacy domain and intellectual property protection, told NDTV.

"At present, existing laws and regulations in India such as the IT Act are evoked to take down deepfakes, relevant provisions of which include section 66C (identity theft), section 66D (impersonation), section 66E (privacy violation), sections 67, 67A and 67B (obscene or sexually explicit content) and the intermediary rules that mandate takedown of fake and misleading information within established timelines," she said.

The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023 for which rules are still awaited may also find relevance, as using a person's digital personal data to create a deepfake without consent is a violation, although enforcing the same against unknown perpetrators seems challenging at present.

The Centre has also issued advisories directing platforms to identify and take down deepfakes and other misinformation.

Should Common People Be Concerned

While celebrities are going to court to find a solution, it is important to remember that deepfakes and unregulated AI content can be equally damaging to any individual who shares his or her data online, even if it is just a photo on any social media platform.

Chief Justice of India BR Gavai has warned against the threats posed by evolving technology.

"The threats faced by girls are no longer confined to physical spaces; they extend into the vast and often unregulated digital world," Chief Justice Gavai said at an event on the rights of the girl child. "From online harassment, cyberbullying, and digital stalking to misuse of personal data and deepfake imagery, the challenges have evolved in both scale and sophistication."

Ambastha, who deals with such cases daily, agreed that the dangers posed by deepfakes are far from over.

"While celebrities may rely on personality rights to curb deepfakes, the general netizenry remains helpless and is unlikely to approach the courts for taking down deepfakes, especially in the case of female victims," she said.

India needs concerted and targeted measures to tackle deepfakes, starting with a dedicated statutory framework, she added.

For example, many nations have started enacting laws focused entirely on AI. Emphasising the need for such a dedicated law in India, Ambastha said regulations in the European Union (EU) such as the AI Act are examples of countries recognising the need to moderate manipulated content.

The EU has brought a policy that provides for outright ban of malicious deepfakes. The EU also made it mandatory to make disclosures for legitimate usage of such technology.