HC orders takedown of Priety Zinta deepfakes, says misuse of such content affects fundamental rights

Mumbai, Jul 8 (PTI) The Bombay High Court on Wednesday ordered the removal of all deepfakes, morphed images, fake videos and other unauthorised online content featuring actor Priety Zinta, holding that misuse of such content affects a person’s fundamental rights. As it gave relief to Zinta, a single bench of Justice Madhav Jamdar also reminded online platforms of their due diligence obligations under the Information Technology Rules. The court also raised the issue of the role of intermediaries in tackling such content, as even their platform was being misused. “If the intermediaries start taking action, such type of offenders will stop. Otherwise, you are part of affecting fundamental rights of the citizens of this country,” HC said. The bench ordered the immediate take-down of all such unauthorised and fake images and videos of Zinta uploaded on various platforms. In her suit, Zinta had referred to videos, images and chatbot-style interactions depicting her through deepfakes and morphed visuals. The actor’s counsel Venkatesh Dhond pointed to around 275 websites that contained AI-generated, morphed or superimposed images and videos using the actor’s likeness. He submitted that such material violated her personality, publicity and moral rights. The court said that Zinta, who has been associated with the film industry for over 25 years, had built a valuable public identity through her career. The unauthorised use of her image, likeness and mannerisms in AI-generated content could damage her reputation and violate her rights, it said. “The plaintiff’s personality rights, publicity rights and moral rights are violated by creation of such morphed and superimposed content,” the court said. It added that these rights flow from the constitutional guarantee of free speech under Article 19 and the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21, which includes the right to live with dignity. The court held that a prima facie case had been made out and granted interim relief. A deepfake is synthetic media -- like an image, audio or video recording -- created using artificial intelligence (AI) to convincingly replace or alter a person’s likeness or voice. PTI SP NR