Aishwarya Rai Bachchan Gets Personality Rights Protection, Delhi HC Says ‘Unauthorised Exploitation Of Individual Leads To Violation Of Privacy’

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan earlier moved to the Delhi High Court seeking protection from unauthorised use of her name, image, photographs and persona across digital platforms and commercial products and including the misuse of Artificial Intelligence (AI). On this matter, the Delhi High Court has protected the personality rights, observing that ‘unauthorised exploitation of personal attributes of an individual violates rights to privacy and also undermines the right to live with dignity’. Justice Tejas Karia has restrained various entities from misusing personal attributes of Aishwarya’s name, image used by technology tools and AI.

The Delhi High Court said, “Personality Rights of individuals, simply put, entail the right to control and protect the exploitation of one's image, name, likeness or other attributes of the individuals' personality, in addition to the commercial gains that can be derived from the same. Personality Rights can be located in the individuals' autonomy to permit or deny the exploitation of the likeness of other attributes of their personality.”

The court also added that when the identity of a famous personality has been used without their consent, it may not only lead to their commercial image but also create a deep impact on their right to live with dignity. It said, “In other words, the unauthorized exploitation of the attributes of an individual's personality may have two facets – first, violation of their right to protect their personality attributes from being commercially exploited; and second, violation of their right to privacy, which in turn leads to undermining their right to live with dignity.”