Judicial Approach In Digital Erasure: Exploring The Obstacles Victims Face When Removing Exploitative AI Content Online
Vijayaraghavan K, LLM, School of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Administration, Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University, School of Excellence, Taramani, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
ABSTRACT
The rapid proliferation of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has led to a surge in non-consensual AI-generated exploitative content, disproportionately targeting vulnerable individuals. The article exposes the role of judiciary in removing the obstacles that victims encounter when attempting to permanently erase this material from the internet. The systemic barriers to effective digital erasure were investigated based on the technological, legal and institutional frameworks. The technical limitations, rapid automated replication of data across decentralized networks and the inability of standard hashing mechanisms to detect minor AI alterations, render content removal akin to an endless game of whack-a-mole. The legal and regulatory fragmentation creates jurisdictional voids, as existing privacy and copyright laws are ill-equipped to handle synthetic data that does not utilize a victim’s actual photograph. Furthermore, it explores the obstacles embedded within platform reporting architectures, where opaque, automated takedown processes often place an exhausting evidentiary burden on the victim. Consequently, victims suffer prolonged psychological, social, and economic trauma. While digital abuse inflicts irreversible psychological and reputational trauma, current judicial and regulatory frameworks remain profoundly ill equipped to facilitate timely digital erasure. This study critically examines the legal, technical, and systemic barriers that victim- survivors encounter when trying to purge malicious, AI-generated material from the internet. These challenges are heavily compounded by jurisdictional impasses and the anonymous, borderless spread of content across decentralized networks.
Keywords: Judicial, digital erasure, right to be forgotten, DPDP Act, IT Act, EU-GDPR.
