Delhi HC safeguards Aishwarya Rai’s personality rights, restrains websites from unauthorised use of name, image

New Delhi: In a big relief for Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, the Delhi High Court has issued an order restraining several entities, including websites, from misusing her name and images through the use of Artificial Intelligence tools. The court’s order safeguarded the actor’s personality rights, noting that the unauthorised exploitation of a person’s attributes infringes upon their right to privacy and diminishes their right to live with dignity.

Justice Tejas Karia observed that such misuse not only results in financial loss to Bachchan but also damages her dignity, reputation, and goodwill. The court added that exploiting her name, likeness, image, or other aspects of her persona without permission amounts to infringement, since such unauthorised adoption could create public confusion and suggest false endorsement by her.

The court explained, “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 individuals' personality, in addition to the commercial gains that can be derived from the same. Personality Rights can be located in the individuals' autonomy to permit or deny the exploitation of the likeness of other attributes of their personality.”

It further held that when a well-known person’s identity is used without consent or authorisation, the harm is twofold — it may cause financial loss to the individual while also infringing upon their right to live with dignity. “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 order stated.

Justice Karia emphasised that in such instances of unauthorised use of personality rights, courts must intervene to prevent harm to the affected individual. He therefore granted an ex parte ad interim injunction in favor of the actress in her case against entities misusing her personality traits without consent. 

The order restrained the defendants — including unidentified entities (john doe) — from using or appropriating her name “Aishwarya Rai Bachchan,” the acronym “ARB,” her image, likeness, or any other attributes of her persona for commercial or personal benefit without authorisation. This prohibition explicitly applies to technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Generative AI, Machine Learning, Deepfakes, and Face Morphing across all media and formats.

Additionally, the court instructed Google LLC to remove the URLs identified in the suit within 72 hours and to provide, in a sealed or password-protected file, the Basic Subscriber Information of the operators or sellers involved. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) was also directed to block and disable the flagged URLs within seven days.

In conclusion, Justice Karia observed that Rai, being one of the most renowned figures in Indian entertainment and a longstanding brand ambassador, has built a considerable reputation and goodwill, with the public placing trust in the brands she endorses.

 “Any infringement of the Plaintiff's Personality Rights, while causing confusion amongst the members of the public regarding endorsement or sponsorship of a product or service by the Plaintiff, will also lead to dilution of the Plaintiff's reputation and goodwill,” the court said.

(With Live Law inputs)