First Secretary Louise Haigh has been urged to back new personality rights after telling the TUC Congress that the Government must “heed the warnings” about artificial intelligence while recognising its potential benefits.
Equity, the performing arts and entertainment trade union, said ministers must go beyond broad commitments on AI safety and introduce a new regime of personality rights giving people clear rights over their voice, face, body and likeness against unauthorised digital replicas.
Equity motion at TUC Congress
Shortly before Haigh addressed Congress, Equity moved a motion calling for personality rights “to give performers a clear route to control and license digital replicas within agreed limits, and to give all individuals a clear right to object to a harmful digital replica”.
Equity’s policy is that performers and creative workers must have informed consent, fair remuneration, transparency and enforceable protections when AI systems use their work, image, voice or data — and that without those rights, AI risks becoming a tool of exploitation and deepfake abuse.
Fleming: come good on the promise
Equity general secretary Paul W Fleming said:
“We’ve heard really positive, warm words from Lou Haigh today about extra safeguards for workers over AI. The government can come good on that promise by introducing personality rights.”
He added:
“If ministers want AI to serve the public good, they must put working people’s rights at the centre of regulation. Everyone stands to benefit from a personality rights framework. It’s important to stop deepfakes, it’s important to give people rights and dignity over content that’s created and to allow our members to protect themselves against the growing storm of AI.”
Fleming said Equity hoped there would be a government consultation on personality rights before the end of the year. The union warned that scraping creative work and personal data to train AI models threatens livelihoods across the performing arts and entertainment industries.
