Protecting One’s Image Against Harmful Deepfake Content – Navigating Novelties in Platform Regulation and Legal Solutions by Law Enforcement

Abstract

The paper examines the legal solutions against illegal online content created and broadcast using deepfake technologies, focusing on the interplay between personality rights (principally the right to one’s image) and vulnerable groups (women). The extension of the normative framework for platform regulation by the European lawmaker (Digital Services Act, AI Act, completed by norms already in place like GDPR), as well as responses by national regulatory authorities offer the chance to assess the proficiency of these measures, confronting them with recent jurisprudential approaches. Nevertheless, the issue of deepfake pornography cannot be fully comprehended by studying various legal toolkit, as it represents an object of widespread social anxiety, and, as such, it goes beyond individual harm and poses a systemic risk in discriminating against social categories. Regulatory framework and public policies in the field of deepfake pornography (seen as a form of violence against women) are still evolving, but signal an ampler regime of preventive measures, completed by stricter regime of sanctions.