Denmark moves to ban sharing AI deepfakes without consent

Denmark's culture minister, Zenia Stampe, tabled a bill on Thursday that would make it unlawful to share lifelike digital imitations of a person's appearance and voice without their consent, with social media platforms as the main target.

Stampe, of the Social Liberal Party (Radikale Venstre), presented the bill on 8 October 2026, according to a press release from the Ministry of Culture. It carries out a cross-party political agreement reached on 26 June 2025.

The bill amends Denmark's Copyright Act and adds two protections. The first lets any person object to a lifelike, digitally generated imitation of their personal characteristics, including their appearance and voice, being made available without consent. The second covers performing artists, whose performances and presentations may not be digitally imitated and shared without their consent. The ministry says the rules protect ordinary people and artists alike, not only public figures.

Enforcement falls on the platforms rather than the people who post. Under the 2025 agreement, sharing the content carries no fine and no prison sentence for the individual, though the imitated person can claim compensation under Denmark's ordinary damages rules. The mechanism is the EU's Digital Services Act, which the rules are designed to activate: a person gets a clear legal basis for demanding that a hosting platform remove illegal content, and both Denmark's DSA supervisory authority and the European Commission can fine a platform that fails to act on a notice.

The bill carries an exception for caricature, parody, satire and criticism of power and society. The exception does not apply when the imitation is misinformation that can concretely cause serious danger to another person's rights or essential interests, or a concrete danger to life or property. In the Ritzau report carried by Berlingske, Stampe acknowledges the line will be difficult and says the courts must decide whether a given work is satire or satire used as an excuse for something illegal.

She described the gap the bill is meant to close in the ministry statement. "With artificial intelligence you can create manipulated videos and images with a few clicks and share them on social media," she said, in a statement translated from Danish. "That can lead to misinformation and create doubt about what is real." One of the bill's most important aims, she said, is to get the tech giants to remove manipulated content quickly so it does the least possible harm.

Stampe points to cases close to home. According to the Berlingske report, a photo from her own profile was turned into a video that appeared to show her speaking, made without her consent. She also cites Karsten Hønge, a member of the Folketing for the Socialist People's Party, who she says has been misused in hundreds of fake posts about Greenland.

For creators, the effect depends on the wording the Folketing settles. Teams that put a real person's face or voice into AI-generated video would need that person's consent, and a label would not stand in for it. Advertising and corporate videos would not fall under the satire exception, which is drawn for commentary and comedy. The protections would apply in Denmark only; content removed there could still appear on the same platforms when reached from other countries, according to the June 2025 agreement text.

The bill now goes to the Folketing, where it needs parliamentary approval.

If it passes, Stampe says she hopes it takes effect at the turn of the year, which Euronews reported as the start of 2027.