Online Safety and Other Legislation Amendment (My Face, My Rights) Bill 2025: deepfake protections explained

The short answer

Online Safety and Other Legislation Amendment (My Face, My Rights) Bill 2025: deepfake protections explained

The Online Safety and Other Legislation Amendment (My Face, My Rights) Bill 2025 is a private senator's bill introduced by Senator David Pocock on 24 November 2025. It would amend the Online Safety Act 2021 if passed to establish a complaints and enforcement regime for the non-consensual sharing of digitally altered or artificially generated audio or visual content depicting a person's face or voice — commonly known as deepfake material. It also amends the Privacy Act 1988 to create a statutory cause of action allowing individuals to sue for the wrongful use or disclosure of deepfake material. The bill is currently before the Senate.

This is a federal system guide. State constitutions, parliaments and local-government laws can allocate comparable functions differently.

The useful question is not only “what is the rule?” but also “who administers it, which document controls it, and when might it change?” That distinction prevents an accurate general explanation from becoming wrong advice in a particular election, chamber or policy setting.

Evidence review

What the bill proposes

The Online Safety and Other Legislation Amendment (My Face, My Rights) Bill 2025, introduced by independent ACT Senator David Pocock on 24 November 2025, addresses the growing problem of non-consensual deepfake content. Deepfakes are digitally altered or artificially generated images, audio, or video that realistically depict a person's face or voice in situations that never occurred.

The bill would make two principal changes. First, it amends the Online Safety Act 2021 to establish a complaints and enforcement regime for non-consensual sharing of deepfake material. Under this regime, individuals whose face or voice has been used without consent in digitally altered content can lodge a complaint with the eSafety Commissioner, who would have powers to order the removal of the content and take enforcement action against non-compliant platforms.

Second, it amends the Privacy Act 1988 to create a statutory cause of action — a legal right to sue — for the wrongful use or disclosure of deepfake material. This creates a pathway for individuals to seek compensation and other remedies through the courts when their image or voice has been used in deepfakes without consent, without needing to rely on existing (and potentially inadequate) common law actions such as defamation or breach of confidence.

Evidence review

Background: the deepfake challenge

The rapid advancement of generative AI technology has made it possible to create highly convincing fake images, audio and video of real people with minimal technical expertise. While deepfake technology has legitimate applications in entertainment, education and accessibility, it has also been weaponised for harassment, fraud, and the creation of non-consensual intimate imagery.

In Australia, the existing legal framework for addressing deepfakes is fragmented. The Online Safety Act 2021, which established the eSafety Commissioner, already covers image-based abuse (non-consensual sharing of intimate images) but does not specifically address AI-generated content. Some states have criminalised the distribution of intimate images without consent, but coverage of AI-generated material varies. At the Commonwealth level, there is no specific civil remedy for victims of non-consensual deepfakes.

The issue has attracted bipartisan concern. Parliamentary inquiries and the eSafety Commissioner have called for legislative reform to address the specific challenges posed by AI-generated content, including the difficulty of attribution when content is created and distributed anonymously across platforms.

Evidence review

The eSafety Commissioner complaints regime

The bill's first pillar expands the powers of the eSafety Commissioner, the independent statutory office holder responsible for administering Australia's online safety regulatory framework. The Commissioner would be given a specific complaints-handling function for non-consensual deepfake material, modelled on the existing image-based abuse complaints scheme.

Under the proposed scheme, an individual who discovers AI-generated content depicting their face or voice without consent could lodge a complaint with the eSafety Commissioner. The Commissioner would assess the complaint and, if satisfied the content meets the criteria, could issue a removal notice to the platform hosting the content. Platforms that fail to comply could face civil penalties.

The scheme would cover both intimate and non-intimate deepfake content, reflecting the range of harms that can arise from non-consensual digital impersonation — from reputational damage and psychological distress to fraud and identity theft.

Evidence review

The privacy tort: a new civil remedy

The bill's second pillar would create a statutory cause of action under the Privacy Act 1988 for the wrongful use or disclosure of deepfake material. A 'cause of action' is a set of facts that gives a person the right to seek a legal remedy. This would allow victims to sue for damages and seek injunctions in the Federal Court or Federal Circuit and Family Court.

This is significant because Australia currently lacks a general statutory tort of privacy at the Commonwealth level. While the Privacy Act regulates how organisations handle personal information, it does not provide individuals with a direct right to sue for invasion of privacy. The bill would create a specific, targeted privacy right in the context of deepfake material.

The creation of a statutory privacy tort, even one limited to deepfake material, represents a notable development in Australian privacy law. The Australian Law Reform Commission and other bodies have long recommended the introduction of a statutory cause of action for serious invasions of privacy, but successive governments have not acted on those recommendations.

Evidence review

Parliamentary status and prospects

As a private senator's bill, the My Face, My Rights Bill faces the same procedural hurdles as other non-government legislation. The government controls the Senate's legislative programme and determines whether private senators' bills are debated. As of July 2026, the bill is before the Senate, having been introduced on 24 November 2025.

The bill's prospects may depend on whether the government introduces its own legislation to address deepfakes. The government has previously indicated it is considering reforms to online safety laws, including through the ongoing review of the Online Safety Act. If the government introduces its own bill, Senator Pocock's bill may serve as a reference point or be incorporated into the government's approach.

The bill also requires support from both the government and the opposition (or sufficient crossbench support) to pass the Senate, and from the government to pass the House of Representatives. As with all private members' and senators' bills, the political dynamics will determine whether it progresses beyond its current stage.

Common questions

Before you rely on the answer