The Delhi High Court has granted interim protection to actor Kriti Sanon against the alleged misuse of her name, image, likeness and voice through AI-generated content, sexually explicit deepfakes and impersonating accounts.

Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, while hearing Sanon's suit seeking protection of her personality and publicity rights, directed various defendants to take down identified URLs containing objectionable material and restrained them from uploading or generating similar content.

The Court clarified that the interim arrangement is limited to specific categories of content and does not extend to news, criticism, commentary, satire, parody, caricature or fan expression.

The Court also observed that the questions concerning personality rights raise complex legal issues which would be decided after hearing the contesting defendants.

The Court directed the concerned intermediaries to take down or disable access to the URLs identified in the suit within the time prescribed under the Information Technology Rules, 2021.

It also directed the authorities concerned to issue blocking directions in respect of websites hosting pornographic deepfakes.

The Court restrained the defendants from uploading, hosting, generating or making available further material of a similar nature.

Such content includes material impersonating Sanon or falsely representing an association with her; sexually explicit, obscene or morphed images, videos or audio, including AI-generated content, chatbots or voice models presented as the actor, merchandise of the kind placed on record.

The Court clarified that the injunction would not restrain news, reviews, criticism, commentary, satire, parody, caricature or fan expression which does not fall within the specified directions.

The Court also observed that its findings were prima facie and confined to the interim arrangement.

The matter has been listed for further hearing on December 10.