Getting tech giants to take things down faster
Denmark's culture minister will on Thursday propose a bill to ban the digital copying and sharing of lifelike representations of a person — including their appearance and voice — in a bid to crack down on the spread of AI-generated deepfakes, Reuters reported.
Culture Minister Zenia Stampe said AI-manipulated videos and images could lead to misinformation and create doubt about what is real. The bill is meant to protect both the wider public and artists, whose performances and work may not be imitated and subsequently shared.
The push reflects growing alarm over how realistic synthetic media has become.
Affordable AI video and voice generators can now produce convincing fake footage of anyone — from politicians to private citizens — fuelling scams, harassment and political disinformation.
"One of the main goals of the bill is to get the tech giants to take down manipulated content quickly so that it causes as little harm as possible," Stampe said in a statement.
The proposal would prohibit the unauthorized digital reproduction and distribution of a person's likeness — covering AI-generated videos, images and audio that imitate real individuals.
Denmark's approach differs from countries that treat deepfakes mainly as a criminal matter.
By creating an individual right, the bill would let victims seek takedowns and damages directly, without waiting for prosecutors to act.
Satire and parody stay protected
The bill does include an exception for caricatures, parodies, satire and other work that criticises society and those in power — intended to preserve freedom of expression while restricting the unauthorized use of people's digital identities.
Digital-rights advocates have cautiously welcomed the exemptions, arguing that any likeness law must not become a tool for silencing legitimate criticism.
The draft's explicit protection of parody and pastiche is wider than several earlier European proposals.
It is not yet law: the proposal is still subject to parliamentary approval.
Stampe said she hopes the bill will enter into force around the turn of the year.
If adopted, it would rank among the broadest civil protections against deepfakes in Europe.
A global test case for likeness rights
Denmark's move lands as deepfake tools become cheaper and more convincing, and as regulators worldwide weigh how to respond.
Other European countries have taken narrower approaches — Italy, for instance, has criminalized the spread of deceptive harmful fakes since 2025.
Denmark's rights-based model would instead put enforcement power in the hands of individuals.
The bill would also give performing artists similar protections against realistic imitations of their performances, addressing the use of AI clones of actors and musicians in commercial content.
Whether the bill becomes a template for the wider European Union will depend on parliament.
But the message from Copenhagen is unambiguous: as AI gets better at copying people, a person's digital identity should still belong to them.
By Hamza Faisal
