In a recent order with regard to the personality rights of Shilpa Shetty, Bombay High Court has restrained the defendants from using or misrepresenting her name, voice, image, persona, or likeness in any form. The Court has further ordered that any infringing or defamatory content circulating on many platforms be pulled down with immediate effect, in order to reinforce the importance of consent before a public figure’s identity cab be used for commercial gains.  

In November, Shilpa Shetty moved the Bombay HC seeking protection of her personality rights from being illegally commercialised by several platforms which were using AI version of her voice, deepfake images etc to make commercial gains. 

In an official statement, Shilpa’s lawyer Sana Raees Khan said, “The Bombay High Court has made it absolutely clear in Ms Shilpa Shetty’s Personality Rights case that the internet cannot become a playground for deepfakes and digital impersonation. The Court has protected her personality rights and acknowledged that her name, image, voice and persona are valuable legal rights which cannot be commercially exploited or digitally manipulated without her consent.”

The statement further read, “This order reinforces that digital platforms and intermediaries must act swiftly to remove such material and must restrain the misuse of technology that violates her dignity and reputation.”

In the last few months, many other film personalities like Kajol and Shatrughan Sinha too had their personality rights protection order passed by High Court.