Delhi High Court protects MP Shashi Tharoor’s personality rights; orders to stop deepfakes

New Delhi: Delhi High Court on Saturday granted interim relief to MPs Shashi Tharoor sought protection of personality rights and ordered the removal of AI-generated deepfakes, including fabricated videos of him praising Pakistan that were maliciously displayed on digital platforms.Justice Mini Pushkarna ruled that as a “respected and recognized public figure” Tharoor had enforceable personality and publicity rights over all identifiable aspects of his personality. The court prohibited anyone from copying, misappropriating or imitating Tharoor’s name, image or visual likeness, distinctive voice, signature speech rhythm, manner of speaking and highly refined vocabulary.Justice Pushkar said the Thiruvananthapuram MP’s “reputation, goodwill, name, appearance/image/likeness, voice, mannerisms, style, signature speaking style and other attributes are uniquely identifiable and associated with him”.The HC said that no one may create, publish or disseminate any synthetic media, deepfake, voice clone audio or morphed video through any physical or virtual medium using artificial intelligence, generative artificial intelligence, machine learning or any other technology for any commercial, political or malicious purpose.The court directed XCorp to remove specific links containing disputed content and directed Meta to ensure that identified Instagram URLs that had been blocked remain inaccessible. It also ordered the two platforms to disclose the identities and subscriber details of people who allegedly uploaded or created content within three weeks.Tharoor has approached the court seeking a permanent injunction to prevent the alleged misuse of his personality, voice, likeness and public image through artificial intelligence-generated deepfake videos that falsely depicted him making politically sensitive remarks. According to his civil lawsuit, the doctored videos caused significant damage to his public image. The court restrained the defendants (referred to as “Ashok Kumar/John Doe”) and associated persons from copying, imitating or using any aspect of Tharoor’s identity to create deepfakes, voice-clone audio or morphed videos through artificial intelligence, generative artificial intelligence or machines.