NEWS & ANALYSIS | DIGITAL IDENTITY
AI can now reproduce a person’s face and voice with remarkable accuracy. Governments are beginning to respond, but ownership of digital identity is proving harder than stopping an obvious fake.
By Andrew McDonald · Immortal AI · Evidence rechecked 29 July 2026
A convincing digital replica once required specialist software, technical skill and a large amount of recorded material.
That barrier is disappearing.
Consumer AI tools can now imitate voices, animate photographs and generate video of people appearing to say things they never said. Some uses are harmless or useful. Translation, accessibility, film production and education can all benefit.
The same capability can also detach a person’s identity from the person themselves.
A cloned voice can call a relative asking for money. A familiar face can appear in an intimate image, endorse a product or deliver a political message. Once a convincing replica exists, it can be copied and redistributed faster than the person depicted can challenge it.
The legal question sounds simple: do you own your face and voice?
The answer is not simple at all.
From famous faces to ordinary people
Performers have argued over unauthorised commercial use of their likeness for decades. Fraud, defamation, privacy and consumer-protection laws can already deal with some forms of impersonation.
Generative AI changes the scale.
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner warns that deepfakes can be used for identity theft, extortion, sexual exploitation, reputational damage and harassment. The regulator also notes that readily available tools now allow ordinary users to create increasingly credible deepfakes. eSafety: deepfake trends and challenges.
The target no longer needs to be famous. A child with social-media videos, an employee who appears regularly in online meetings or a business owner who advertises on camera may already have enough material online to make imitation possible.
This belongs alongside our broader investigation You Never Told Them That. AI Worked It Out. The same digital traces that help platforms build a profile can also become raw material for creating a version of you that you did not author.
America is trying to create a federal digital-replica right
The United States is moving toward a specific legal framework for digital replicas.
The bipartisan NO FAKES Act of 2026 would create rights over unauthorised digital replicas of a person’s voice and visual likeness. A revised version was introduced in May 2026. The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the bill in June, and it was placed on the Senate legislative calendar on 2 July 2026. US Senate: revised NO FAKES Act.
The idea is significant because it treats digital identity as something that can be controlled and licensed.
A person could authorise a studio to reproduce their voice for a particular film or allow a company to use a synthetic version of their face for a defined campaign.
But that immediately creates another question: what exactly did the person agree to?
A broad contract could permit performances that did not exist when the agreement was signed. A worker might be paid once for a digital replica that can be used repeatedly. Consent can protect people, but badly drafted consent can also become a mechanism for transferring control.
Ownership does not solve everything
The US Copyright Office has recommended a federal law specifically addressing unauthorised digital replicas, saying existing protections leave important gaps. US Copyright Office: Artificial Intelligence and digital replicas.
That does not mean every imitation should be prohibited.
Satire, documentary reconstruction, journalism, parody and artistic expression can all involve imitation. A right drawn too broadly could allow powerful people to suppress legitimate criticism by claiming that an unwanted depiction is an unlawful replica.
The hard cases are therefore not technical. They are contextual.
Was the replica authorised? Was the audience likely to be deceived? Was the use commercial? Was it satire? Was it intimate or abusive? Could the person revoke consent?
A single label saying “AI generated” will not resolve all of those questions.
Australia still relies on a patchwork
Australia does not currently have one comprehensive right that gives every person ownership of their face, voice and digital likeness.
Different laws can apply depending on the harm. Fraud, defamation, privacy, consumer law and criminal offences may all become relevant. eSafety’s image-based abuse scheme also covers intimate material that has been digitally altered or faked to look like a person. eSafety: image-based abuse.
That matters, but it also leaves the victim doing a great deal of work.
They must discover the replica, preserve evidence, identify the platform, request removal and work out which legal pathway applies. The creator may be anonymous or overseas.
Meanwhile the fake can continue circulating.
This is the same accountability problem Immortal AI keeps returning to: technology can move in seconds while remedies move through systems designed for a slower world. That imbalance is part of the wider power shift examined in AI’s Promise Is Real. So Is the Power Shift.
Identity after death may be even harder
Digital replicas become more complicated when the person being imitated is dead.
A family may want to preserve a familiar voice. Museums may create interactive historical figures. Studios may complete unfinished performances.
But a dead person cannot approve new words placed in their mouth.
Even where rights pass to an estate, legal permission does not guarantee authenticity. It merely determines who has authority to authorise the replica.
A legally approved version of someone could still express views they never held.
A new layer of human identity
A photograph records a moment. A voice recording preserves something a person actually said.
A digital replica is different.
It can keep producing new statements, performances and appearances long after the original recording ended.
That makes it less like a copy and more like a system for manufacturing additional versions of a person.
The technology has legitimate uses. A blanket ban would throw away real benefits and would probably be impossible to enforce.
The more realistic standard is control.
Consent should be specific. Revocation should be possible. Platforms should not force victims to prove the same harm repeatedly. Exceptions for journalism, satire and art should protect genuine expression without creating an easy loophole for exploitation.
And the burden cannot sit entirely with individuals monitoring the internet for versions of themselves.
For most of history, your face and voice could travel only as far as your body, a recording or another person’s imitation could carry them.
AI has broken that connection.
The law is now trying to decide who controls what comes next. The uncomfortable possibility is that copies of us may already be moving faster than the rules designed to protect the original.
Principal sources
- US Senate: Revised NO FAKES Act of 2026
- US Copyright Office: Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Digital Replicas
- Australian eSafety Commissioner: Deepfakes
- Australian eSafety Commissioner: Image-based abuse
Editorial note: This article is news analysis, not legal advice. The NO FAKES Act remains proposed legislation and may change.
AI disclosure: Immortal AI uses AI-assisted research and drafting. Sources, claims, framing and final editorial decisions remain the responsibility of Immortal AI.
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