Music superstar Taylor Swift has applied to trademark her voice and image to head off the threat of AI-generated impersonations. But the problem extends much further than pop royalty.

Anyone can be manipulated by the powerful technology: AI-created videos of you endorsing a politician you despise, images on social media of you in a skin-tight Spiderwoman outfit you never wore, a simulation of your voice allowing users to indulge their sexual fantasies … all possible.

The rapid development of deepfakes is amplifying calls for better legal protections for individuals’ images and likenesses. The notorious rollout of new picture-editing capabilities by X’s Grok chatbot in late 2025 only added to their urgency.

And the law has begun to respond. Australia now criminalises creating and sharing sexually explicit material online, including digitally created material.

In the US, the 2025 Take it Down Act prohibits non-consensual publication of intimate depictions of individuals, including “digital forgeries”.

In New Zealand, proposed amendments to the Crimes Act and the Harmful Digital Communications Act will improve criminal law responses to........

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