I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
I congratulate the Minister of State on her new role and thank her for taking this Bill. I thank her and the Minister, Deputy Jim O'Callaghan, for agreeing to support the Bill and facilitate its movement to Committee Stage. I look forward to working with the Department to address the underlying issues within the Bill. I am happy to consider how we amend it to deal with some of the challenges that new technologies are posing to our digital identify.
I am conscious that this is a justice Bill. I know that, procedurally speaking, it is difficult to do but if it were possible for this to be referred to the Committee on Artificial Intelligence, it might work in a more effective way. If not, and it is referred to the justice committee, given the urgency of some of the issues, it is important that the underlying matters are addressed.
I first started taking an interest in some of these issues around deepfakes and misuse of our digital identity nearly a decade ago. At the time, people might remember that there were fairly poor deepfakes. There were some deepfakes of Nancy Pelosi slurring her words. They were pale imitations. I went the Museum of the Moving Image in Brooklyn, New York. It was exploring the issue of where deepfakes were going to go. The first mass watched event was the moon landing. It may not be widely known but there were two speeches prepared for President Nixon at the time. The speech he delivered was the speech for a successful moon landing. However, another speech was prepared in the event that the moon landing did not go well. What would he have had to deliver to the American people and the globe? Using footage of President Nixon, the museum reconstructed the speech that would have been delivered had the moon landing been unsuccessful.
I remember sitting and watching it in the museum, which had been set up like a sitting room from the 1960s. This was not political nerds watching all of this. I was convinced this was Richard Nixon. I thought it was particularly believable.
We have obviously seen technology move on in the last decade. We saw deepfakes in the presidential election. They were not great deepfakes and I was surprised by some of the people who had been taken in by them. I hosted a meeting with the Irish Recorded Music Association in the audiovisual room here in Leinster House in March. An Irish company, AudioStack, by taking just a couple of moments of my speaking in this House, was able to replicate or synthesise my voice and provide a speech that sounded as if I was delivering it in Leinster House. It was probably far more eloquent than I am, but colleagues who were listening at the time were absolutely convinced that this was the case. While this is a problem that we would be very aware of in a political context, there are concerns if our digital identity is misused in circumstances where it could have a personal impact. We all get dodgy text messages or our parents receive them and ask if they are a scam. Generally, people are getting much better at picking out those text messages. However, if you receive a telephone call and you think the voice you hear is your mother, father, son, daughter, loved one or somebody close to you, and you act on the basis of that, it can have potentially serious consequences. We have already seen that in other jurisdictions in cases of bank fraud where people use automated means of interaction.
This is also a problem for our musicians and artists and others in the creative industry. I am glad that IMRO and Irish Equity are among those who have been raising issues in relation to this. It is important that we listen to those voices that are expressing concerns in this area. What this legislation seeks to do is essential, namely, to protect artists and musicians such that others will not seek to commercially exploit their identity in an unauthorised way. We know that a lot of streaming services, for instance, are starting to remove deepfakes and so on, but there remains a real difficulty with how we can protect our own digital identity.
What this Bill is seeking to do, in protecting our digital identities, is to make it an offence to misuse someone's voice, image or likeness without their permission and for malign purposes. This is not about someone making up a funny meme or anything like that. It is for instances where it is very clear that there are malign purposes involved. We need to start to talk much more about our digital identity. We have done a very good job nationally and at European level in protecting our data rights but our digital identity now also needs to be protected.
As we see artificial intelligence develop so rapidly, the need for legislation in this area has never been as important. We have to remember, even in terms of how we speak in this House, our voice is an intrinsic part of who we are and we have to ensure we do not allow others to use it for the purposes of fraud or to misrepresent us. Technology now exists that allows for our voice or image to be simulated or replicated in such a way that it is believable to others. There are benefits to that and this legislation does not try to prevent that from happening. What the Bill seeks to do is to make it an offence where someone knowingly uses or infringes upon the use of an individual's name, photograph, voice or likeness by publishing, performing, distributing, transmitting or otherwise making it available to the public in any medium for the purposes of advertising products, events, political activities, merchandise, goods or services or for the purposes of fundraising, the solicitation of donations, the purchase of products, merchandised goods and services or to influence elections or referendums. Equally, it will make it an offence to distribute, transmit or otherwise make available on any algorithm, software tool or other technology, the primary purpose of which is the production of an individual's photograph, voice or likeness. These actions must be done without the individual's permission - if it is done with the individual's permission, it is not intended to be an offence - and with the intend to cause harm or to be reckless.
As I said, I am perfectly happy for the legislation to be amended and addressed on Committee Stage. I am open to that. This issue has come up time and again on both the artificial intelligence committee and the media committee. There is an urgency about being able to address this. We know Members of this House have seen their image associated with products they have nothing to do with. We have seen prominent journalists and economist purporting to sell things. We all think we are smart enough and we will not fall for it, but we know that people are so doing.
There are incredible, amazing creative possibilities in the use of AI and new technology but we also have to guard against harms. This is about protecting our own digital identity and protecting all of us, as citizens and consumers. For those in the creative industries, we need to protect their right to their voice, their expression and their identity against misuse. I urge the Minister of State to move with legislation in this area as quickly as possible.
