Denmark’s New Law: Copyright Over Face and Voice to Combat AI Deepfakes in Europe

With artificial intelligence developing at an ever-increasing pace the world is being presented with a new problem of how to safeguard people against the abuse of their identity in deepfake manipulation that has been presented by artificial intelligence. As a result, Denmark is about to become the first nation in Europe, and among the first worldwide, legally to grant individuals the copyright over their own face, voice and body. This major step is intended to provide citizens with ownership over the use of their faces and voices in the digital era and in a time when deepfake technology is increasingly composed and easy to create. 

What Is Denmark’s Deepfake Law?

In June 2025, the government of Denmark proposed an initiative that will fundamentally change the copyright legislation in the country, which was backed by virtually every major political group. The proposed new law would grant a person his physical appearance, voice, and his body as his intellectual asset. It implies that when an individual uses your image (your face, voice or physical appearance) in a fake video, audio recording or image without consent, you could sue him or her to remove it and be rewarded with monetary compensation.

Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt of Denmark reported that the law aims to put “a loud message” that each person has the rights over their own face and voice. He underlined the urgency as people could be cloned or copied nowadays with the help of digital devices and these people could be misused in a way people never could imagine before. The legislation should be adopted by fall in 2025, and it will be implemented by the end of the year.

Why Is This Law Important for Digital Rights? 

Deep fakes, hyper-realistic AI-generated images, videos, or audio that resemble real people, have become an international issue. A study by Deeptrace Labs estimated that there were more than 500,000 deepfake videos on the Internet by early 2025 as the amount of deepfake videos online doubled every six months in 2024. These deepfakes are also utilized in malicious activities, research, and misinformation, fraud, non-consensual explicit content creation.

How Will the Law Work? 

1. Copyright over Likeness: People will be having a copyright of face, voice and body.
2. Removal and Compensation: It permits the targets to seek the removal of unauthorized posting and compensation.
3. Platform Accountability: The social media and technology platforms should be swift in order to delete the flagged content, or they should be penalized severely.
4. Exemptions: Satire and its parody are allowed to guarantee freedom of speech.

The Danish government also plans to advocate for similar protections throughout the European Union when it assumes the EU presidency in 2025, signaling a potential shift in digital rights across the continent.

Implications and Opinion around the world

Digital rights and AI ethics experts have applauded the move by Denmark. Dr. Carissa Vllez is a professor of AI ethics at the University of Oxford, and he believes that this legislation can become the first paradigm of global digital personal rights, which will empower ordinary people against AI abuse. European Digital Rights (EDRi) agrees with the move as well, because the current legal regulations have not kept pace with the AI advancement.

Denmark is in the spotlight of other countries. The European Union already adopted the AI Act that establishes the regulation on high-risk AI applications but the Danish legislation would be even more detailed, shedding light on matters of individual rights and protection against deepfakes. The United States is also debating it, with states such as California and Texas enacting laws against deepfake election interference but so far no state currently has comprehensive copyright of personal likeness.

Why is it Important to the World?

Since the AI content is becoming increasingly advanced, identity theft, fraud, and reputational damage risks are increasing. Copyrighting of faces and voices is a preemptive move to enable the citizenry, keep predators at bay, and bring tech corporations to justice.

This action by Denmark is not only related to the protection of their own country as it might trigger an influx of similar legislation at an international scale, placing a new standard of how digital rights should be accommodated in the age of AI. Legal systems (such as the one in Denmark) will play an important role in preserving personal identity and integrity in online correspondences as deepfake technology develops.

The revolutionary idea by Denmark to confer copyright on faces, voices, and bodies is the answer to deepfangs that has come at the right time. Having a clear vision on digital rights and high political support, Denmark is establishing the example of how individuals can be safeguarded against the abuses introduced by AI. This law is capable of becoming an example to other countries all over the world, as the world observes and hopes that in the era of AI applications, only the owner would own his/her identity.