Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's personality rights SECURED by Delhi HC, court orders REMOVAL of misused content

Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's personality rights were upheld by the Delhi High Court on Thursday, September 11. The court noted that any unauthorised use of a person's personal characteristics compromises their right to privacy and their ability to live in dignity. In this respect, Justice Tejas Karia prevented other organisations from abusing the actress's name and pictures, among other personal characteristics, even when artificial intelligence (AI) was employed. According to the court, an actress's reputation is harmed when personality rights are misused.

What did the court say?

"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 said.

"In other words, the unauthorised 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," it added.

Additionally, Justice Karia stated that the courts cannot ignore such occurrences and further ordered Google LLC to remove URLs that were cited in Aishwarya's lawsuit within the next 72 hours.

Abhishek Bachchan also moves Delhi HC

Actor Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya's husband, also petitioned the Delhi High Court to protect his personality and publicity rights. He also asked that websites and platforms be barred from using his persona, likeness, image, or any phony videos, including ones that contain sexually explicit content.

A plea for action against websites such as Bollywood Tee Shop for selling t-shirts and other items depicting Bachchan and other Bollywood superstars without permission is also included in the petition.

Court slams misuse of tech, Google to comply

The lawsuit further stated that such a malicious use of cutting-edge technology is unlawful, improper, deliberate, and dishonest, and that it eventually results in irreversible harm and injury.

Advocate Mamta Rani on behalf of search engine Google stated that the platform will remove the URLs in accordance with the court's directive.