Senator Introduces Bill Making AI Deepfakes Illegal, Granting Removal Powers to eSafety Commissioner
Independent lawmaker David Pocock tables legislation giving Australians ownership of their face, voice and likeness as Parliament enters final sitting week
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Independent Senator David Pocock introduced legislation to Parliament on Monday that would make it illegal to create AI deepfakes without consent and establish new powers for the eSafety Commissioner to force removal of harmful synthetic content, filling what the lawmaker described as a critical gap in Australian law.
The bill, titled My Face, My Rights, would give Australians legal ownership of their face, voice and likeness while creating a complaints system for victims of deepfake material. The measure arrives during Parliament’s final sitting week of the year after roughly two years of negotiations, though it faces significant hurdles given the government’s longstanding policy against supporting private senators’ bills.
“My bill is called My Face, My Rights, and really just legislates the fact that you own your face, you own your voice, you own your likeness, and ensure that if someone deepfakes you, that you have an avenue to actually get that taken down and potentially actually go through a process of recovering funds for damages,” Pocock told ABC News.
The ACT senator criticized what he characterized as insufficient government action on artificial intelligence regulation even as the technology rapidly advances, pointing to the growing sophistication of AI-generated photos and videos.
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No Current Protections Exist
Pocock said existing Australian law provides no meaningful safeguards against deepfake misuse, leaving citizens vulnerable as AI capabilities expand.
“We’ve seen the government, I think, asleep at the wheel when it comes to regulating against the misuse of artificial intelligence,” Pocock said. “Australians know how quickly it’s improving and what the new models are doing, what you can generate in terms of photos and videos. And yet we’ve seen parliament not keep up.”
The legislation would strengthen both the Online Safety Act and the Privacy Act to establish clear legal ownership of personal biometric identifiers. Under the proposed framework, creating deepfakes of someone without their consent would constitute an illegal act, with victims gaining clear pathways to lodge complaints and seek content removal.
“I just don’t see why we would allow people not to be able to own their face, own their voice, own their likeness,” Pocock said. “This is part of being human. And we live in a world now where it shouldn’t depend on who has the best software or the worst ethics to allow deep fakes of people and the misuse of them.”
Response Framework Rather Than Prevention
The bill focuses on responding to deepfake content that reaches the internet rather than preventing its creation, acknowledging the difficulty of regulating overseas-based software that Australians can access.
“It’s very hard to regulate against some of the software that is based overseas and Australians accessing it and deepfaking people,” Pocock said. “But this says that that is illegal. It is illegal to deepfake someone without their consent. And we desperately need safeguards in place against the misuse of AI.”
The enforcement mechanism would work through amendments to existing legislation. The measure would provide what Pocock described as “a very clear avenue to actually lodge a complaint, get things taken down, and then potentially go through the civil process.”
By establishing civil pathways rather than solely criminal ones, the legislation aims to give everyday Australians faster access to remedies when they become deepfake victims.
Different Approach From 2024 Criminal Law
The proposed bill takes a distinct approach from 2024 federal legislation that criminalized the transmission of artificially generated sexual material depicting adults via carriage service without consent.
“The bar to press criminal charges is quite high,” Pocock explained. “This essentially provides everyday Australians with a way to quickly get images, videos, voice clones taken down quickly and then potentially proceed down the path of pressing civil charges.”
The dual-track approach would allow victims to seek immediate content removal through the eSafety Commissioner while retaining the option to pursue civil damages against perpetrators.
“I think we’re living in an age where we’re seeing more and more artificially generated content and it’s pretty easy now to deep fake someone and we have to say that is not okay, that your face belongs to you,” Pocock said.
The senator referenced his own demonstration of deepfake technology before the last federal election, when he showcased how easily AI could manipulate images of political leaders, illustrating the technology’s accessibility and potential for misuse.
Uncertain Path to Passage
Despite two years of discussions around the legislation, Pocock acknowledged significant obstacles to passage, particularly the government’s blanket policy against supporting bills introduced by private senators.
“The government has a policy of not supporting private senators’ bills,” Pocock said. “I think that’s not a great way to run things. I think you should be looking at ideas, regardless of who they come from.”
Pocock said he introduced the measure in good faith and characterized it as addressing a substantial vulnerability in Australian law as artificial intelligence capabilities continue expanding.
“I’m putting this forward in good faith, and it deals with, I think, a huge hole in our laws in the face of artificial intelligence,” he said.
The senator indicated he would engage in discussions with government officials and Senate colleagues about potentially referring the bill to an inquiry in 2025, aiming to build broader support for what he termed a sensible approach to AI regulation.
“It’s something I’ll certainly be talking to the government about, talking to my colleagues in the Senate about potentially sending it to an inquiry next year and really trying to build support behind this, I think, really sensible idea,” Pocock said.
The timing presents additional challenges, as Parliament enters its final sitting week before breaking for the year, creating a compressed timeline for legislative consideration.
Environmental Laws Dominate Final Week
While introducing the deepfake legislation, Pocock also faces negotiations over separate environmental reform measures that Environment Minister Murray Watt has characterized as requiring passage this week with a now-or-never urgency.
Watt indicated willingness to negotiate further with either the Coalition or the Greens to secure support for environmental laws during the final sitting period.
Pocock outlined 15 specific changes he believes necessary for the environmental legislation to gain his support, based on consultations with stakeholders including environmental organizations and business groups. He sent those requirements to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Watt on Friday.
“I wrote to both the Prime Minister and Murray Watt, the Environment Minister, outlining the 15 things that I’ve heard from my consultations, I’ve held roundtables, I’ve engaged in the Senate committee process, I’ve spoken to environmental organisations, spoken to business,” Pocock said.
The environmental measures span 1,500 pages and received virtually no support in their current form during Senate committee hearings, according to Pocock.
“I mean, new environmental laws have to actually protect nature,” Pocock said. “There was basically no one in the Senate committee process who said that these bills as drafted are good to go.”
Among Pocock’s proposed amendments is removing an exemption for regional forest agreements from environmental protections, which he listed as his first priority. He also seeks to eliminate exemptions for land clearing and ensure the proposed Environmental Protection Authority maintains genuine independence.
“Things like the exemption from our environmental laws for native forest logging, that clearly has to change,” Pocock said. “There’s exemptions for land clearing. Those things have to change. You actually have to have an independent EPA that is actually independent.”
Extinction Crisis Cited
Pocock framed the environmental reforms as urgent given Australia’s status as what he termed a world leader in species extinction, with multiple ecosystems approaching collapse.
“We are the world leaders in extinction. We have ecosystems in this country that are on the brink of collapse,” Pocock said. “And so as a parliament, we have to get this right.”
The senator noted that the Senate inquiry examining the environmental legislation extends until March 2025, suggesting the government’s push for immediate passage may be premature given the complexity of the proposals.
“I think with 1500 pages legislation, it’s probably right that we really are digging into the details and ensuring that they’re actually going to deliver,” Pocock said.
Pocock criticized what he characterized as the government’s rush to complete the environmental legislation, arguing a more deliberate approach would better serve the public interest.
“The government seems to be in an awful hurry to just get these done and get them out of the way. I think that’s the wrong approach,” he said.
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