'Infringes Her Privacy': Bombay High Court Directs Take Down Of AI-Generated Visuals, Deepfakes & Morphed Pictures Of Actor Preity Zinta
The Bombay High Court in an interim order on Wednesday (July 8) directed taken down of objectionable content including deepfake images, AI and superimposed visuals and morphed pictures of actor Priety Zinta. Single-judge Justice Madhav Jamdar in his order, held that the material highlighted by Zinta indeed prejudiced her public image. "There is substance in the contentions raised by the...
The Bombay High Court in an interim order on Wednesday (July 8) directed taken down of objectionable content including deepfake images, AI and superimposed visuals and morphed pictures of actor Priety Zinta.
Single-judge Justice Madhav Jamdar in his order, held that the material highlighted by Zinta indeed prejudiced her public image.
"There is substance in the contentions raised by the Plaintiff (Zinta) that the continuing dissemination of Al-generated deepfakes, manipulated images, chatbots and other infringing content has caused and continues to cause irreparable injury to her goodwill, reputation and commercial interests. Such injury cannot be adequately compensated by monetary damages alone because once deepfake content is disseminated across the internet it is capable of unlimited replication and circulation, resulting in permanent dilution of the Plaintiff's personality rights and public image," Justice Jamdar held.
Further, the judge after perusing the material placed on record by Zinta, opined that the said material clearly shows that her personality rights, publicity right and moral rights are violated by creation of said morphed, deepfake and/or superimposed contents comprising the morphed Plaintiff's image, photographs and videos.
"The Plaintiff's Personality Rights and Publicity Rights are protected by Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India i.e. the right to freedom of speech and expression. The right to life and personal liberty including the right to privacy are protected by Article 21 of the Constitution of India. The right to life as contemplated under Article 21 of the Constitution of India includes the right to live with dignity. The Plaintiff's right to live with dignity is affected by the impugned actions. Consequently, the Plaintiff 's moral rights under the Copyright Act have also been prejudicially affected," Justice Jamdar opined.
The court thus directed social media platforms to remove and pull down all the objectionable content that the actor has highlighted in her plea.
In her plea, Zinta stated that her identity and personality traits including her 'distinctive' dimpled smile, has been used in an 'unwholesome and unsavory' manner which maligns her reputation, outrages her modesty and/or exposes her to ridicule, thereby tarnishing and/or diluting her meticulously curated public image which is unique to her.
"The misappropriation of any attribute of the Plaintiff's Personality Traits without her express permission for a commercial purpose is liable to be restrained," Zinta argued.
She pointed out to a list of YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and X links wherein the contents uploaded misused her personality rights. The list comprised of about 275 such links. She told the court that all these images, photographs are AI images and creation of morphed, deepfake and/or superimposed content comprising her morphed image, photograph and/or likeness without her authorisation or consent.
"The infringing material falsely depicts or imitates the Plaintiff, frequently suggesting endorsements, associations or interactions which have not been authorised or consented to by her. Certain content is also alleged to be misleading, defamatory, explicit or otherwise objectionable, thereby causing grave prejudice to the Plaintiff's dignity, reputation and goodwill," she argued.
Taking note of all these, Justice Jamdar directed various defendants to pull down all the content that she has highlighted. However, one of the social media platforms, told the court that in future, it would be difficult to remove the content as there can also be genuine photographs or videos and thus, in such a case, Zinta or her legal team will have to provide detailed objections.
However, Justice Jamdar pointed out that Rule 3 of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, contemplates due diligence by an intermediary, which would mean that if there is any objectionable content uploaded on their platform they must suo motu remove the same. With this, the bench, still granted a liberty to both Zinta and the social media platforms to approach the court and seek appropriate orders.
The matter will be next heard on September 3.
Case Title: Preity G Zinta vs Google LLC [Interim Application (L) 20703 of
Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (Bom) 316