[HN Gopher] Ireland fast tracks Bill to criminalise harmful voic...
___________________________________________________________________
Ireland fast tracks Bill to criminalise harmful voice or image
misuse
Author : mooreds
Score : 123 points
Date : 2026-01-12 13:38 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.irishtimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.irishtimes.com)
| belorn wrote:
| How does the law distinguish itself from anti-harassment laws?
|
| I recall a old lawsuit (not sure which country) where a student
| had photoshopped a nude body onto a picture of their teacher and
| given it to other students. The main question in the case was if
| this qualified as sexual harassment, even if the teacher in
| question never received the image. I don't remember the outcome,
| through I think they were found guilty.
| piltdownman wrote:
| The cynic in me assumes its a way of establishing criminal
| liability on social media platforms for deepfakes impacting
| politicians credibility - striking while the Grok is still hot
| as it were.
| orwin wrote:
| I think YouTube and meta (Instagram and Facebook) will be hit
| as hard, or even harder, because of the numbers of scam ads
| using likeness. It will make them liable from publishing scam
| ads (which, to be clear, should already be in the DMA)
| cmxch wrote:
| If they're fine with targeting BlueSky for the same reasons,
| then by all means let the law be.
| nashashmi wrote:
| > The deliberate misuse of someone's image or voice without their
| consent for malign purposes should be a criminal offence.
|
| So much vagueness in misuse yet so much impact with consequences.
| This bill is being speedlined. And it seems to hurt everyone at
| the same time.
|
| Better to bring a bill with specific limitations and prohibitions
| that is complete with treatment, consequences, prosecutions, and
| appeals.
|
| Then that bill can be extended to other prohibited actions as
| they become apparent
| lolc wrote:
| Have you read the bill or is the quote the only thing you're
| going on?
| surgical_fire wrote:
| Except this is not the text of the bill. You are quoting a
| comment from a news articles, and commenting upon it as if you
| were reading a bill.
| piltdownman wrote:
| So the actual context of this is a long-standing feud between
| Meta and our elected representatives (and some prominent media
| figures) regarding social engineering scam ads.
|
| You've probably seen some variant of it - a 1:1 copy of a
| reputable newsoutlet - in this case The Irish Independent, The
| Irish Times, RTE or Newstalk - with a purported video from our
| Prime Minister or similar which leads to a crypto-trading or
| forex-trading sales funnel. Simon Harris, our previous Head of
| State, was inundated with variants of the same script:
|
| "In the nation's best interests, we've carried out a full
| investigation to make sure it's not a scam," the AI-generated
| Harris appears to say in the scam ad shown on YouTube.
|
| "This is your chance to change your life. All it takes is one
| small step: invest EUR250 and start earning today," the deepfaked
| figure tells a press conference.
|
| https://www.thejournal.ie/facetcheck-debunk-ai-scam-ad-deepf...
|
| https://www.newstalk.com/news/social-media-platforms-see-sur...
| leoc wrote:
| (Harris was our head of government (ie. PM or equivalent)
| rather than head of state (which would be the president).)
| miohtama wrote:
| The existing fraud and advertising laws cover these kind of
| scams. Because the bottleneck is enforcement, adding new laws
| won't make the world safer.
| piltdownman wrote:
| Except they don't - enforcement is circumvented by psuedo-
| anonymous users pushing illegal ad campaigns that revert back
| to inoffensive content or a similar cop-out by the time
| Meta/X responds to the report
|
| https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/despicable-simon-
| harri...
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/irishpolitics/comments/1i1shz3/anyo.
| ..
| collingreen wrote:
| Does this require a belief that it isn't reasonable for
| meta to control or even be aware of ad content they are
| paid to show?
| pjc50 wrote:
| This is only going to change if prosecution is brought
| against Meta itself, which it looks like the "recklessly"
| clause is intended to imply. I look forward to Meta facing
| criminal charges for profiting from fraud.
|
| What's the Irish equivalent of Hansard, by the way? Can we
| look up the debate?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> facing criminal charges for profiting from fraud_
|
| Amazon, too, but this seems to be "fraud that annoys pols,"
| so I guess The Big A is going to be left alone...
| dmurray wrote:
| There hasn't been a debate. The headline is not reflective
| of the facts. There hasn't been any agreement to fast track
| this bill, but the politician sponsoring it has said in a
| radio interview that (surprise!) he thinks it should be
| fast tracked.
|
| The Dail record can be found here, but there's nothing of
| interest in it:
|
| https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/search/?searchType=debates&deb
| a...
| amiga386 wrote:
| Oh for fuck's sake.
|
| HN: "Ireland fast tracks Bill to criminalise harmful
| voice or image misuse"
|
| TFA: " _Calls to_ fast track Bill to criminalise harmful
| misuse of someone's voice or image "
|
| Call to action. Not action. And the call is coming from
| the bill's proposer! He _would_ say that, wouldn 't he?
| But what matters is if the actual government takes that
| bill further. If they don't, we don't need to care about
| what this guy thinks.
|
| HN headline (possibly an earlier headline of TFA) is
| fundamentally misrepresenting the situation.
| wasabi991011 wrote:
| You can email the mod team with this explanation and get
| them to change the title.
| verzali wrote:
| Oh they won't. Vance will say a few mean words and threaten
| to bomb Dublin if anyone lifts a finger against Meta.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| What makes you think Meta will do a better job of policing
| this than the actual police?
|
| Granted, they might be able to crack down harder in some
| respects since unlike the police they don't have to worry
| about due process, but is that really "doing a better job"
| on balance?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The police doesn't have access to all the data for
| starters. Meta does.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| These _are_ public posts we 're talking about, right? Or
| are we saying Meta should be cracking down on content in
| private communication too? (And if so, isn't that the
| same concern I just mentioned about due process, but for
| privacy instead?)
| Nextgrid wrote:
| If we're talking about _profiting_ from fraud, then we
| 're talking ads. Which are semi-public, you only see them
| if you fall within the targeting bucket, which definitely
| wouldn't include "law enforcement officer".
| simion314 wrote:
| >What makes you think Meta will do a better job of
| policing this than the actual police?
|
| Meta announce they will stop political/electoral
| advertising in EU, so this ios proof that Meta can do but
| we need to foce them to act, otherwise Meta makes money
| from all the scams in the ads that are published, in fact
| I remember Meta looked into the scam problem and decided
| to stop looking sicne solving the problem would reduce
| their profits.
|
| Now in case all those well paid engineers at Meta can't
| find a solution here is an idea I had just by thinking at
| it for a few seconds, those geniuses shoudl be able to
| find better ones if they want.
|
| 1 when a scam ad is reported block that account and their
| ads
|
| 2 before the ad is published have an AI scan it, if it
| looks to be related to politics, crypto or other scam
| friendly domains have someone review it . do not allow
| fresh accounts to publish this kind of shit without a
| human review
|
| 3 for Facebook content when someone shares fake shiot,
| like a proven fake document, or scam or faked video block
| the account and then notify all the people that liked or
| shared the scam that they were scammed/tricked ... when
| your users will get 10 daily notifications "You are an
| idiot you shared this fake shit" you might realize you
| should do something about scams or users will stop
| engaging with your stuff.
|
| I am talking here about proveable scams and fakes , so
| not about some gray area. I mean scams, faked
| videos/images/documents etc
| pjc50 wrote:
| Banning some fraudulent advertising is doing a better job
| than leaving it up, yes.
| nerdralph wrote:
| As a common-law legal system, I would expect Ireland to have
| something similar to Canada's Criminal Code identity fraud.
| 403 (1) Everyone commits an offence who fraudulently
| personates another person, living or dead,
| (a) with intent to gain advantage for themselves or another
| person; (b) with intent to obtain any
| property or an interest in any property; (c)
| with intent to cause disadvantage to the person being
| personated or another person; or (d) with
| intent to avoid arrest or prosecution or to obstruct, pervert
| or defeat the course of justice. Marginal
| note:Clarification (2) For the purposes of
| subsection (1), personating a person includes pretending to
| be the person or using the person's identity information --
| whether by itself or in combination with identity information
| pertaining to any person -- as if it pertains to the person
| using it. Marginal note:Punishment
| (3) Everyone who commits an offence under subsection (1)
| (a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to
| imprisonment for a term of not more than 10 years; or
| (b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.
| uyzstvqs wrote:
| This is a good way to regulate this. Criminalize people who abuse
| AI tools to cause harm. Don't try to impose censorship or mass-
| surveillance on AI tools. I oppose all pornography, but censoring
| nudity from a model both compromises the model's quality
| (example: SD3) and stops legitimate artistic value.
|
| Though the framing on Grok is highly duplicitous. It is against
| the ToS, and it's about a few abusers among millions of
| legitimate users. Meanwhile there are actual "nudification"
| services which advertise themselves entirely to enable this kind
| of abuse.
| 0ckpuppet wrote:
| who decides what is harmful? That's going to be like letting a
| Bible thumping Moral Majority zealot decide what's Art and
| what's pornography.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| And under which jurisdiction is this going to be prosecuted?
| So some random Nazi on Twitter makes CSAM of an Irish actress
| - is Musk going to comply with the subpoena to help the Irish
| authorities find the user? He's already said he won't be
| punishing users for 'free speech' as he defines it.. so then
| what?
| saubeidl wrote:
| Then we prosecute Musk.
| yxhuvud wrote:
| The images would be published by Grok, which is part of
| Twitter. They are responsible for what they themselves
| publish. Hence Twitter is the obvious choice of where to
| direct the subpoena.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Note that the bill includes "distributes", so Twitter
| clearly counts as "distributor".
|
| More interesting question: if the Twitter app is made
| available through the Apple App store, then would famous
| Irish-based multinational company Apple be liable as well?
| idiotsecant wrote:
| The courts. Just like if you sue someone for anything else.
| Demonstrating harm is part of the process.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Who defines what a crime is anyways right?
| uyzstvqs wrote:
| Nudity, including artistic nudity, is in itself the complete
| opposite of pornography. One is human nature, with art
| depicting its beauty and purity, while the latter is about
| the gratification of lust.
|
| As a Christian, pornography is clearly sinful and harmful.
| But if you wish to use your free will to partake in it, then
| you do you. Non-consensual pornography (which is what this is
| about) causes harm to another person, which is why it cannot
| be tolerated.
|
| This should be obvious IMO.
| lonelyasacloud wrote:
| > This is a good way to regulate this. Criminalize people who
| abuse AI tools to cause harm.
|
| In same way as is done so successfully with guns, speeding
| automobiles, etc?
|
| These things are capable of inferring photorealistic av
| deepfakes; with a well drafted law they're more than capable of
| inferring if what they are being asked to is illegal.
|
| It makes zero sense to wait for the poop to hit the fan and
| then waste taxes investigating the illegality, punishing
| criminals, and dealing with impact on victims when it can
| stopped at source.
| john-h-k wrote:
| > knowingly uses or infringes upon the use of and publishes ...
| an individual's name, photograph ... without the individual's
| prior consent ... and being reckless as to whether or not harm is
| caused to, the other person.
|
| > [harm occurs when someone] seriously interferes with the other
| person's peace and privacy or causes alarm or distress to the
| other person
|
| This seems very widely worded. A newspaper publishing the
| name/image of a suspected criminal is definitely "publishing an
| individuals name, photograph", without their consent, and can
| quite clearly cause alarm or distress.
|
| Without some exemption clauses added, this bill seems to
| basically ban using anyone's name/photograph/likeness in ANY
| context that criticises them; it will almost certainly conflict
| with ECHR's Article 10 on freedom of expression. However(!!) with
| a few exemptions it can be made much better. Even tying it to AI
| generated photos/voice/etc would help - most _genuine_ criticism
| and reporting can go without the use of AI, but a lot of the
| intentional harm and sexual harassment did not occur before AI.
| If they don't want to do that, adding some form of "exemption if
| the information was used in a non-libellous context" could also
| work.
| sallveburrpi wrote:
| > A newspaper publishing the name/image of a suspected criminal
| is definitely "publishing an individuals name, photograph",
| without their consent, and can quite clearly cause alarm or
| distress.
|
| Cherrypicking your example: Newspapers shouldn't publish names
| or images of suspects, so to me this specific example would be
| a very good thing. Not sure (IANAL) but I think in my country
| this is illegal already
|
| Otherwise I agree that it's very ambitious wording
| Amezarak wrote:
| > Cherrypicking your example: Newspapers shouldn't publish
| names or images of suspects, so to me this specific example
| would be a very good thing. Not sure (IANAL) but I think in
| my country this is illegal already
|
| Why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't the government have to
| publicize the names and identities of people they arrest so
| we know they're not doing so illegitimately?
| Sparkle-san wrote:
| It's definitely a damned if you do and damned if you don't
| situation. Lots of people have had their reputations ruined
| by accusations that turned out to be false but people made
| judgements based on the initial report and then moved on
| with their life carrying it as fact.
| wccrawford wrote:
| I think there's a difference between the government doing
| it and the newspaper.
|
| The newspaper can cherry pick who they post about, and spin
| it however they want. The government should be posting
| _all_ of them in the same way, with just the facts.
| orwin wrote:
| Publishing a name and publishing a likeness is very
| different.
|
| Especially if the person arrested is accused of immoral
| acts. In my country we have a very known story from 25
| years ago where 18 persons were accused of being
| pedocriminals. Their faces blasted everywhere, on first
| page of most journals, on the TV... It turns out 13 of them
| weren't guilty at all. Issues with psychological pressure
| on the children and a lot of mistakes made life hell for
| the accused and ultimately innocent, people, most of them
| lost part of their life because of that.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Who's talking about governments? The post you responded to
| sure never brought it up.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Publishing the name of someone arrested and then later
| released without charge could constitute harm to them, even
| if you make it theoretically illegal to discriminate
| against them on that basis.
|
| The US use of mugshots is exploitative.
| Amezarak wrote:
| Arresting someone without that being widely reported has
| historically resulted in substantial harm - it's called
| "disappearing" someone.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| It' specifically illegal in some jurisdictions.
| sollewitt wrote:
| Your snipping is making it look broader than it is: you can't
| misrepresent someone as being supportive of your product or
| cause, and you can't distribute software that makes, or make
| yourself, likenesses of other people without their prior
| consent.
|
| It doesn't constrain what you do in contexts other than where
| you use someone's likeness to misrepresent their position.
|
| The harms are restricted to the scope above.
| Gormo wrote:
| > Your snipping is making it look broader than it is: you
| can't misrepresent someone as being supportive of your
| product or cause, and you can't distribute software that
| makes, or make yourself, likenesses of other people without
| their prior consent.
|
| This sounds like it would effectively ban photography in
| public places. Or at least ban the manufacture/sale of
| cameras or software that takes photos.
| amiga386 wrote:
| So if I draw a caricature of a politician in Illustrator,
| then Adobe goes to prison?
|
| What if I draw a caricature of my own friends, in
| Illustrator, without first getting their consent? Does Adobe
| go to prison?
|
| What if I captioned my illustration with my friend saying
| "It's my round!" (which is misrepresenting their position
| because it's _never_ their bloody round), would Adobe go to
| prison then?
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| No, there is currently no method to imprison Adobe nor any
| other company.
| amiga386 wrote:
| Having looked up the text, I can now answer my own
| questions.
|
| 1. As "the production of an individual's photograph, voice,
| or likeness" is not Illustrator's "primary purpose or
| function", Adobe are off the hook. So is anyone else if
| they argue that the "primary purpose or function" is not
| the production of _an individual 's_ photograph, voice, or
| likeness. So if Grok can be prompted to produce _any_
| image, _including_ porn of individuals, provided it 's not
| the _primary_ purpose of Grok, they 're untouchable.
|
| 2. Even if the bill weren't worded that way, a legal person
| in Ireland allows for corporate personhood
| (https://legalguide.ie/corporate-identity/#separate-legal-
| per...), so Adobe Corporation, as the legal person who
| "distributes, transmits, or otherwise makes available an
| algorithm, software, tool, or other technology, service, or
| device" (Illustrator) would not be subject to "imprisonment
| for a term not exceeding seven years", but it would be
| subject to "a fine" (maximum amount not specified)
|
| 3. Misrepresenting someone or not is irrelevant. The
| offense is when you _either_ use the depicted person
| without their consent (regardless of how you represent
| them) _or_ you _intend_ to harm them (or recklessly don 't
| consider the harm you might cause them), whether you have
| their consent or not. Harm specifically is {interfering
| "with the other person's peace and privacy" or causing
| "alarm or distress" to them} _AND_ "a reasonable person
| would realise" that. It would be pretty difficult for a
| reasonable person
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_person) to think
| misrepresenting a politician would cause them "alarm or
| distress" or interfere with their "peace and privacy", so
| you'd probably be fine producing images of politician XYZ
| saying they hate freedom, want to take your guns away, eat
| babies, etc., as they get that day-in, day-out and it
| hasn't stopped them yet.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Your second sentence directly contradicts your first
| sentence, and the substance of your post is only two
| sentences.
| john-h-k wrote:
| "or to influence elections or referenda" has quite a wide
| scope and was what concerned me. Publishing a political in a
| negative light absolutely could influence an election! But
| yes I should have included that part, not good by me, sorry.
| orwin wrote:
| A newspaper publishing the name/image of a suspected criminal
| is definitely "publishing an individuals name, photograph",
| without their consent, and can quite clearly cause alarm or
| distress
|
| If the suspected criminal isn't a public figure, it's a good
| thing, isn't it?
| JohnMakin wrote:
| What if they are not guilty?
| pjc50 wrote:
| If you've published it in a newspaper, now they're a public
| figure!
| ninalanyon wrote:
| In some European countries it's against the law to publish
| details of people who are merely accused.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| Any time you are reading a law, especially one from another
| jurisdiction, you have to be very careful to consider that
| there may be terms with a legal or common law definition that
| you don't understand. In this case, "reckless" seems to be a
| well defined term with a fair amount of case law behind it. To
| my untrained eye it seems like a newspaper would be well within
| their rights to publish harmful information as long as they
| avoid "a conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable
| risk".
|
| https://www.studocu.com/en-ie/document/university-college-du...
| allturtles wrote:
| AFAICT this is the actual bill:
| https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/bill/2025/11/eng/in...
|
| Your selective quoting is extremely misleading. The first
| section about publishing a name/photograph only applies in the
| context of "for purposes of advertising products, events,
| political activities, merchandise, goods, or services or for
| purposes of fundraising, solicitation of donations, purchases
| of products, merchandise, goods, or services or to influence
| elections or referenda." i.e. it's illegal to pretend someone
| is endorsing something they are not.
| pessimizer wrote:
| But the second paragraph doesn't have any of those specifics.
| It's just any algorithm ( _an actual ban on forbidden math_
| ), software, tool, technology, service, or device.
| john-h-k wrote:
| Sorry, the example I had in mind was a politician and I don't
| know why I forgot to add that to the comment, else I'd edit
| it in.
|
| The point is that "to influence elections or referenda" is
| incredibly vague! Almost any reporting on a person involved
| in the election, or even related to it (reporting on someone
| who's group looking bad helps a party) can be construed as
| "influencing an election"
| richwater wrote:
| AI is a god send to governments who have been trying to push
| through censorship laws under the guise of "protecting
| [people|children|women|etc]"
| immibis wrote:
| Hot take that 99% of the world agrees with: Cyberbullying is
| bad and it's ok to punish cyberbullies.
| expedition32 wrote:
| Nobody likes libertarians and you're beginning to understand
| why.
| mystraline wrote:
| Sure, its a proposed law for citizens of this country.
|
| So, how's that going to work out with Indian, Pakistani, North
| Korean, or similar locations using voice spoofing?
|
| Thats right. None.
| nemomarx wrote:
| It seems to target the technology they'd be using - so the
| voice software might be liable, or the platform they use to
| convey the scam?
| reillyse wrote:
| I imagine whoever publishes it to the jurisdiction would be
| liable
| ozlikethewizard wrote:
| The UK is considering an injunction to have Grok and potentially
| X banned until this issue is resolved.
|
| I'm no huge fan of state intervention, particularly my state
| which is notoriously over zealous, prudish, and subtly
| authoritarian. The sweeping changes were seeing in the UK are
| somewhat reminiscent of the old "First they came for the trade
| unionists" poem, and there certainly has been many of us speaking
| out against the attacks on freedom to protest and expression
| here.
|
| However, when you swap out trade unionists for "People comitting
| sexual harassment", "Paedophiles", and "Billionaires", Im
| somewhat more inclined to side with the government on this. Were
| already way down the slippery slope, at least some genuinely bad
| actors are catching some flak this time I guess.
| cmxch wrote:
| Except that the UK is just laundering authoritarianism through
| a clause that selectively harms one organization and not all of
| those that have platforms with the same problem.
|
| Given the UK's already high authoritarian tendencies towards
| speech codes, it would be better to have the US sanction Kier
| Starmer, OFCOM, and other associated parties in the
| Commonwealth, narrowly specified.
| antonvs wrote:
| > Ireland fast tracks Bill
|
| Poor Bill, what did he do to deserve this?
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| He got thoughted.
| rob74 wrote:
| "Ireland fast tracks Bill to criminalise harmful voice or image
| misuse" - now that's some strange capitalis/zation in that
| headline. I'm Ok with title case, but randomly capitalising just
| one word in a title looks strange. Or is this something
| specifically Irish?
| bheadmaster wrote:
| I suppose Bill is going to have a busy schedule in the
| following days.
| joelccr wrote:
| I can't speak for Ireland, but in the UK it is quite common to
| refer to a Bill (before it has passed) or an Act (when it is
| passed) with a capital letter, rightly or wrongly, because its
| name would be capitalised (in this case The Protection of Voice
| and Image Bill, with Bill replaced by Act once it has become
| law).
|
| It is also a capitalised term within the text of the law
| itself.
| CatMustard wrote:
| It also helps that Bill is not a common name here at all (the
| only Bill I've ever met in my life was an American).
|
| I can imagine how confusing it would be if all instances of
| the word Bill in articles such as these were replaced with
| Sean lol.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| I can't find a style guide for the Irish Times, but the
| Independent's style guide seems to agree with you: capitalize
| when used as part of the name of a bill or act, and use
| lowercase thereafter [0]. Perhaps because they are using Bill
| in the headline as a shorthand for the full-name of the bill
| (probably for space reasons), they saw fit to capitalize it?
| Regardless, this is one of those cases where it's not really
| a grammatical choice but one of style/convention.
|
| [0] https://www.independent.ie/editorial/pdfs/stylebook23.pdf
| nickdothutton wrote:
| What is the succinct definition of "harmful"?
| a_paddy wrote:
| A tort
| contagiousflow wrote:
| What do you think courts are for?
| hiprob wrote:
| Ireland is just a copy of the UK, except it's a tax haven and a
| trojan horse of the EU. They have the same age requirement
| regulation online as the UK.
| piltdownman wrote:
| Nonsense.
|
| * There is ongoing discussion in the Irish parliament and
| policy circles about setting a digital age of consent or
| minimum age (e.g. 16) for social media access. This debate is
| driven by concern over youth wellbeing, although no formal law
| has yet been enacted.
|
| https://avpassociation.com/ireland/
| gregbot wrote:
| >This debate is driven by concern over youth wellbeing
|
| I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you if you actually think
| thats what is motivating this
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| > Ireland is just a copy of the UK
|
| That's certainly a geopolitically contentious take if I've ever
| seen one.
| amiga386 wrote:
| This is the entire proposed bill:
|
| https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/bills/bill/2025/11/
|
| https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/bill/2025/11/eng/in...
| Interpretation 1. In this Act-- "broadcast"
| has the meaning assigned to it by the Broadcasting Act 2009;
| "distribute" means distribute to the public or a section of the
| public; "harm" includes psychological harm;
| "Minister" means the Minister for Justice; "publish"
| means publish, other than by way of broadcast, to the public or
| to a portion of the public. Offences 2. (1)
| A person who-- (a) knowingly uses or infringes
| upon the use of and publishes, performs, distributes, transmits,
| or otherwise makes available to the public an individual's name,
| photograph, voice, or likeness in any medium for purposes of
| advertising products, events, political activities, merchandise,
| goods, or services or for purposes of fundraising, solicitation
| of donations, purchases of products, merchandise, goods, or
| services or to influence elections or referenda, or
| (b) distributes, transmits, or otherwise makes available an
| algorithm, software, tool, or other technology, service, or
| device, the primary purpose or function of which is the
| production of an individual's photograph, voice, or likeness, is
| guilty of an offence where these actions are carried out--
| (i) without the individual's prior consent, or, in the case of a
| minor, the prior consent of such minor's parent or legal
| guardian, or in the case of a deceased individual, the consent of
| the executor or administrator, heirs, or devisees of such
| deceased individual, (ii) with intent to cause
| harm to, or being reckless as to whether or not harm is caused
| to, the other person. (2) For the purposes of
| subsection (1), a person causes harm to another person where--
| (a) he or she, by his or her acts, intentionally or recklessly
| seriously interferes with the other person's peace and privacy or
| causes alarm or distress to the other person, and
| (b) his or her acts are such that a reasonable person would
| realise that the acts would seriously interfere with the other
| person's peace and privacy or cause alarm or distress to the
| other person. (3) A person who is guilty of an
| offence under this section is liable-- (a) on
| summary conviction to a class A fine or imprisonment for a term
| not exceeding 12 months, or both, or (b) on
| conviction on indictment to a fine or imprisonment for a term not
| exceeding seven years, or both. Review and operation
| of Act 3. The Minister shall, not later than one year
| after the commencement of this Act, carry out a review of the
| operation of this Act. Short title and commencement
| 4. (1) This Act may be cited as the Protection of Voice and Image
| Act 2025. (2) This Act shall come into operation on
| such day or days as the Minister for Justice may by order or
| orders appoint either generally or with reference to any
| particular purpose or provision and different days may be so
| appointed for different purposes or different provisions.
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