Regulating Deepfakes Through Copyright: Would Denmark's Proposed Approach Be Right For Canada?

Artificial intelligence ("AI") generated synthetic media, or "deepfakes," pose increasingly significant legal and ethical challenges within the cybersecurity landscape. Deepfakes involve the unauthorized use of an individual's likeness to generate highly realistic yet fabricated images, audio or video. Inevitably, they raise issues around personality rights, which is the right to control the use of one's own name, image, voice and other unique identifying features. As deepfake technology becomes more accessible, understanding the legal protections against the unauthorized use of an individual's likeness or other personality rights in Canada and globally, is essential.

Earlier this summer, the Danish Minister of Culture, Jakob Engel-Schmidt, announced proposed amendments to Denmark's copyright legislation aimed at combating the proliferation of deepfakes (the "Proposed Bill"). Backed by cross-party consensus, the Proposed Bill underscores the growing urgency