China's top court draws first AI red lines
The 24-article opinion tells judges how to handle deepfakes, voice cloning, privacy breaches and copyright claims under existing law.
China’s Supreme People’s Court on Monday issued its first 24-article opinion for handling AI-related disputes, choosing to work through existing law rather than waiting for a dedicated AI statute. The guidance draws on the Civil Code, Cybersecurity Law, Copyright Law and Personal Information Protection Law, and the court said it was meant to draw clear legal red lines while still supporting innovation and development.
The sharpest focus is on deepfakes and voice cloning. The court said AI-created fakes can infringe a person’s image, voice and reputation, and it singled out uses such as deepfake images and videos and digitally “bringing the dead back to life”.
Hong Kong Free Press, citing Xinhua, said the rules make clear that people cannot use AI to create or distribute recognisable digital replicas of others without consent, including cloned faces and voices. The report said the guidance also reaches algorithmic price discrimination and AI-generated false information.
The same report said service providers can face legal liability if they fail to act promptly after being notified that their systems have generated infringing content. It also said the guidelines give a route to redress where someone’s face has been digitally altered and used to spread false and defamatory sexual claims.
Vice-President Tao Kaiyuan said the rules are meant to “balance development and security”, and to clarify procedural issues in AI disputes while leaving room for later clarification where consensus is hard to reach.