Denmark plans to thwart deepfakers by giving everyone copyright over their own features

The Danish government is planning to tackle the issue of AI-generated deepfakes by granting citizens property rights over their likeness and voice.

The Danish government is planning to tackle the issue of AI-generated deepfakes by granting citizens property rights over their likeness and voice. The proposed legislation would mean that people who find that their features have been used to create a deepfake would have the right to ask the platforms that host the content to take it down, Danish Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt told CNN on Friday. Engel-Schmidt believes that “technology has outpaced legislation” and the proposed law would help to protect artists, public figures and ordinary people from digital identity theft, which he said is now possible with just a few clicks thanks to the power of generative AI. “I think we should not accept a situation where human beings can be run through, if you would have it, a digital copy machine and misused for all sorts of purposes,” he said. He cited the example of musical artists who have discovered songs online purporting to be theirs, but which have in fact been made using AI clones of their voice. One such case involves Canadian singer Celine Dion, who in March warned fans about AI-generated content featuring her voice and likeness that was circulating online.