In Tharoor’s petition seeking protection of personality rights, the court issued notice to the defendants and asked for replies within four weeks. Know what are personality rights?
Congress Member of Parliament (MP) Shashi Tharoor has approached the Delhi High Court seeking a permanent injunction to stop the use, reproduction, or dissemination of his name, image, voice, and other personality attributes through AI, deepfakes, morphing, or voice cloning.
Shashi Tharoor seeks to protect his personality rights
Tharoor’s counsel, Senior Advocate Amit Sibal, said AI tools cloned Tharoor’s face, voice, expressions, and speaking style to create hyper-realistic videos. The videos allegedly show him praising Pakistan’s diplomacy and making remarks harmful to India’s interests. The videos, though flagged as fake by fact-checkers, keep resurfacing under new URLs and affect both Tharoor’s reputation and India’s international standing, Sibal argued. Complaints were filed with MeitY, Delhi Police, and social media platforms.
Meta told the court that Instagram URLs listed in the suit were made inaccessible on Friday morning, though Sibal said they were active until the previous evening.
Meanwhile, the court issued notice to the defendants, asked for replies within four weeks, and registered the plaint as a suit. It will pass a standard order allowing Tharoor to approach platforms if identical content reappears.
What are personality rights?
According to the IPR Journal of Maharashtra National Law University, Nagpur, “the concept of personality right encompasses the right of a person to control the unauthorised use of their personality attributes such as name, image, voice, likeness, etc. Though the right
includes both commercial and non-commercial aspects, each jurisdiction views the notion of right in a different way, either as a single right that covers both commercial and noncommercial aspects or else as considering both aspects as two separate rights. Therefore, the terminology used by each jurisdiction varies; whereas in India, “personality rights” and “publicity rights” – are terms used interchangeably.
Jasmine Damkewala, AOR, Supreme Court of India and Senior Partner, Circle of Counsels, says “Personality rights are intrinsic rights to the uniqueness of an individual.” It is not that it is only celebrities who may have a right to personality. Everybody has a right to personality rights which are a part of the right to privacy also enshrined and read into the right to life and liberty. Right to life is not a right to a mere existence but a right to have, hold and enjoy all those facets that make life more meaningful.”
“Courts are now more and more recognizing the concept of personality rights even where there is no specific named right to personality rights on the statute book.The legislative lacunae is aptly filled in by the judiciary.
For starters, the Hon’ble Courts of law have time and again granted injunctive reliefs to parties approaching the Courts of law to stop the copying and commercialization of their personality rights. These Orders are the Orders similar to those granted in matters of Copyright, Trade Mark or like infringements. Injunctive Orders known as the “John Doe Orders” are frequently being passed now internationally as also under domestic jurisdiction to prevent the infringement of personality rights by the Respondents,” she emphasises.
Citing examples, Damkewala adds, “The Hon’ble Delhi High Court in Anil Kapoor v/s Simply Life India followed the ruling of Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v/s Union of India, where the Hon’ble Supreme Court recognized privacy as an essential aspect of personal liberty..
Internationally, the rulings of Bette Midler v/s Ford Motor Company and Vanna White v/s Samsung Electronics America have been pathbreaking in terms of recognizing and protecting personality rights and day by day India is seeking more and more people identify this aspect of life and Courts are through their Orders paving the way for a more progressive and aware community.”
