Delhi High Court protects Aishwarya Rai’s personality rights, restrains misuse of her name, image, and likeness using AI technology

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan had approached Delhi High Court over unauthorised use of her name, images, and likeness. The hearing of her plea took place on Thursday, and the court has protected the actress’ personality rights.

According to Live Law, the court stated that the unauthorised use of personal attributes of an individual violates the right to privacy. Justice Tejas Karia restrained several people and companies from wrongly using the actress’ personal details, like her name and photos, especially by using technology like Artificial Intelligence.

The court said, “Personality Rights of individuals, simply put, entail the right to control and protect the exploitation of one’s image, name, likeness or other attributes of the individual’s personality, in addition to the commercial gains that can be derived from the same. Personality Rights can be located in the individual’s autonomy to permit or deny the exploitation of the likeness or other attributes of their personality.”

It further stated that the misuse of a celebrity’s name and picture doesn’t just affect the person financially, but also harms their dignity and reputation.

“In other words, the unauthorised exploitation of the attributes of an individual’s personality may have two facets – first, violation of their right to protect their personality attributes from being commercially exploited; and second, violation of their right to privacy, which in turn leads to undermining their right to live with dignity,” the court added.