The Delhi High Court granted interim relief to Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, ordering the removal of AI-generated deepfakes and synthetic media across digital platforms. The court recognized Tharoor’s enforceable personality and publicity rights, barring the misappropriation of his name, image, voice, and speaking style for any commercial, political, or malicious purpose.
NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court Saturday granted interim relief to Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on his plea seeking protection of personality rights, and ordered removal of AI generated deepfakes, including fabricated videos maliciously showing him praising Pakistan, across digital platforms.Being a “respected and recognised public figure”, Tharoor holds enforceable personality and publicity rights over all identifiable aspects of his persona, Justice Mini Pushkarna ruled. The court barred anyone from reproducing, misappropriating or imitating Tharoor’s name, image or visual likeness, distinct voice, signature oratorical cadence, manner of speaking, and highly refined vocabulary.Justice Pushkarna said the Thiruvananthapuram MP’s “reputation, goodwill, name, physical appearance/image/likeness, voice, mannerisms, styles, signature oratorical style and other attributes are uniquely identifiable and associated with him”.The HC said no one can create, publish or disseminate any synthetic media, deepfakes, voice-cloned audio or morphed video, through the use of AI, generative AI, machine learning or any other technology for any commercial, political or malicious purpose, across any physical or virtual medium.The court directed XCorp to remove specific links containing the disputed content and also instructed Meta to ensure that the identified Instagram URLs, which had already been blocked, remain inaccessible. It also ordered both platforms to disclose the identities and subscriber details of those who had allegedly uploaded or created the content within three weeks.Tharoor had approached the court seeking a permanent injunction against the alleged misuse of his personality, voice, likeness and public image through AI-generated deepfake videos that falsely depict him making politically sensitive remarks. According to his civil suit, the manipulated videos caused significant damage to his public image. The court restrained the defendants, identified as “Ashok Kumar/John Doe” and associated persons, from reproducing, imitating or using any aspect of Tharoor’s identity to create deepfakes, voice-cloned audio or morphed videos through AI, generative AI or machine-
