A BRITISH Labour MP has introduced legislation seeking to make consent a legal requirement before artificial intelligence is used to generate a person’s likeness, with provisions for civil action and offences where the rules are breached.
Dawn Butler, the MP for Brent East, presented the Artificial Intelligence (Consent and Misuse) Bill in the House of Commons on October 20.
The Bill would allow individuals to take civil action when their consent has not been obtained.
It also proposes offences relating to the creation and distribution of such likenesses, alongside duties on AI providers to prevent their technology from being misused.
Butler has argued that technology companies cannot be left to regulate themselves, saying public safety must take precedence over commercial interests.
“We’re not going to let AI companies regulate themselves. We’ve seen it before, and we know it doesn’t work,” she said.
“Public safety must come before tech billionaires’ profits.”
Her proposal comes amid concern over AI tools capable of producing realistic images of people in situations they never participated in, including sexually explicit material created from ordinary photographs without their consent.
The technology has made it easier to manipulate a person’s appearance and produce convincing fabrications, raising questions about how effectively existing laws protect those whose images are used without permission.
Butler has previously called for a digital bill of rights centred on human dignity, bodily autonomy and consent.
She has argued that protections should focus on the rights of individuals rather than rules tied to specific applications that could quickly become outdated.
“Whether it is your image, your voice, or your identity, these must be centred in this debate and protected in law,” she wrote earlier this year.
The proposal follows another Labour backbencher’s attempt to address the legal implications of emerging technology.
Chi Onwurah introduced the Personal Data (Digital Twins) Bill in September, seeking to address the use of software and algorithms that model people’s preferences or behaviour using personal data.
Butler’s Bill received its first reading on October 20 and is scheduled for a second reading on November 27. – October 24, 2026
