Actor Rupali Ganguly, best known for her roles in Anupamaa and Sarabhai vs Sarabhai, has approached the Bombay High Court seeking protection of her personality and publicity rights, alleging that her name, photographs and likeness are being misused online, including through AI-generated and sexually explicit content.
The suit, filed through Advocate Sana Raees Khan, is listed for hearing tomorrow (November 4) before Justice Madhav Jamdar.
In her interim application, Ganguly has sought an injunction restraining various entities and unidentified persons from using her name, voice, image, likeness and other distinctive attributes of her persona without her consent.
The relief sought expressly covers misuse through artificial intelligence, generative AI, machine learning, deepfakes and face-morphing technology.
The actor has impleaded 18 respondents, including online boutiques, celebrity booking and talent-management platforms, Reddit, AI image-generation platform SeaArt AI, Google LLC (which operates Tenor), the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the Department of Telecommunications and unidentified persons.
Ganguly alleges that certain online stores used her photographs or images resembling her likeness to market sarees and other products, falsely suggesting that she had endorsed them.
Several booking platforms have allegedly represented that they could arrange her appearances at private events or brand endorsements, or claimed to have direct access to her and her team, without authorisation.
The application further alleges that AI tools and image-editing software have been used to create fabricated and sexually explicit images depicting her in compromising situations.
It also flags allegedly objectionable posts featuring her photographs on Reddit and AI-generated images circulated through SeaArt AI.
Ganguly has sought directions to Reddit, Google, MeitY and DoT to take down identified infringing links and block access to websites, applications and URLs allegedly violating her rights.
The actor contends that the alleged misuse violates her personality and publicity rights, privacy and dignity, and amounts to unauthorised commercial exploitation of the goodwill associated with her identity.