Digital replica and likeness laws: a guide for performers
ImageVault · Updated
In short
In the United States, a performer's likeness is protected by state right-of-publicity law plus a growing set of digital-replica statutes — California AB 2602 and AB 1836, New York's 2024 law, Tennessee's ELVIS Act — while union agreements such as SAG-AFTRA's Article 39 set consent rules on set. In the UK and EU, the main tools are data-protection law, which treats an identifying scan as biometric data, and the EU AI Act's transparency rules for deepfakes.
Union agreements
For working actors, the first layer is usually contractual. The SAG-AFTRA film and television agreement's Article 39 requires informed consent to the creation and each use of a digital replica, payment for those uses, separate consent for alterations such as dubbing, and protections for the underlying biometric data. SAG-AFTRA's video game and commercials agreements carry their own AI terms, and Equity in the UK has published its own guidance and campaigns on digital replicas.
United States: federal
There is no general federal right of publicity. The Lanham Act §43(a) covers false endorsement — using a recognisable person to imply they endorse a product. The TAKE IT DOWN Act (2025) makes it a federal offence to publish non-consensual intimate imagery, including AI-generated 'digital forgeries', and requires covered platforms to remove it within 48 hours of a valid request. The NO FAKES Act, which would create a federal right over digital replicas of a person's voice and likeness, has been proposed in Congress; check its current status.
United States: states
Most protection comes from state law, and the states with the largest entertainment industries have gone furthest.
- California: Civil Code §3344 (right of publicity) and §3344.1 (deceased personalities). AB 2602 (effective 2025) makes a contract term allowing a digital replica in place of work the performer would otherwise have done unenforceable unless it describes the intended uses reasonably specifically and the performer was represented by a lawyer or union. AB 1836 (effective 2025) extends post-mortem protection to digital replicas of deceased performers.
- New York: Civil Rights Law §§50–51 protects against commercial use of a living person's name or likeness, and §50-f covers deceased performers, including digital replicas. A 2024 law adds AB 2602-style limits on digital-replica contract terms, and the Fashion Workers Act (2025) requires a model's separate written consent before a digital replica is created or used.
- Tennessee: the ELVIS Act (2024) adds voice to the protected right of publicity and reaches the distribution of tools whose primary purpose is reproducing a person's voice or likeness without authorisation.
- Illinois: the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) requires informed written consent before collecting face geometry and gives individuals a private right of action; 2024 amendments added digital-replica protections to the state's right-of-publicity and contract law.
United Kingdom
The UK has no general image right. Performers rely on passing off (as in the Irvine v Talksport and Fenty v Topshop cases), defamation, performers' rights in recorded performances, and data protection. Under the UK GDPR, a scan used to identify a person is special-category biometric data, which needs explicit consent or another narrow condition and carries rights of access and erasure. The Online Safety Act 2023 made sharing intimate images — including manipulated and AI-generated ones — without consent a criminal offence and places duties on platforms to deal with illegal content.
European Union
Under the GDPR (Articles 4(14) and 9), biometric data processed to identify someone is a special category of personal data. The EU AI Act's Article 50 requires that deepfakes be disclosed as artificially generated or manipulated, with the transparency obligations scheduled to apply from August 2026. The Digital Services Act gives platforms notice-and-action duties for illegal content. Denmark has gone further, amending its copyright law to give individuals rights over realistic digital imitations of their likeness and voice.
What this means in practice
Across these regimes the same themes recur: consent to a digital replica must be specific to its uses, biometric data needs a lawful basis and a record of who holds it, and synthetic content of a real person must be labelled or removed when it harms them. Keeping a dated record of each consent, licence and access is what turns these rights into something enforceable — which is what ImageVault's hash-chained audit ledger and Article 39 compliance certificate are for.
This guide is general information, not legal advice. Laws in this area are changing quickly; check the current position with a lawyer or your union before relying on it.