Digital Afterlife And Posthumous Privacy: Legal Frameworks For AI Resurrection And Synthetic Media Creation Of Deceased Persons
- IJLLR Journal
- 4 days ago
- 1 min read
Udayan Rai, LL.B. (Hons.), Jindal Global Law School, OP Jindal Global University
ABSTRACT
The quick and rapid emergence of technologies has enabled the idea of “digital resurrection” through synthetic media. This can range from anywhere between memorial chatbots, lifelike voice to video simulations etc. These technologies have really disturbed the existing notions of privacy, dignity, and control one has over their personal data after their death. While some states in the USA extend a posthumous right of publicity, the European Union excludes deceased persons from data protection, and countries such as India lack clear frameworks altogether. However, overall the current legal frameworks seem to be inadequate and to deal with these issues as of now. (as will be demonstrated further in this paper) This paper asks some important questions - Whether a coherent legal framework can be designed in order to protect a person’s posthumous privacy? What about accommodating for the expressive and cultural uses of synthetic media? Methodologically speaking, this paper takes the approach of conducting a doctrinal and comparative analysis of privacy, intellectual property, and inheritance laws. It also considers the various technical possibilities such as watermarking and consent registries. And thus, in this paper, an argument for a hybrid regulatory package, that is, a time-limited right to deletion of training data, enforceable digital wills, provenance and labelling standards, and a specifically narrowed down, customized posthumous privacy right, will be presented.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Data Protection, Posthumous Digital Rights, Digital Privacy, Intellectual Property.
