Can the EU regulate against deepfakes?
Artificial intelligence tools like xAI’s Grok, OpenAI’s SORA 2 and Google’s Nano Banana Pro allow internet users to create deepfakes - images and videos depicting people doing things they have never done - with more ease than ever before. As it becomes increasingly difficult to tell AI-generated images apart from real photos and videos, can the EU implement safeguards against deepfakes?
Mere days into the new year, users on X began using the platform’s in-built artificial intelligence, Grok, to create sexually explicit images, asking the AI to take the clothes off photos posted by women on the platform without their consent.
This is just one example of “deepfakes”, which can now be easily created by anyone online. Deepfakes have skyrocketed in recent years, with some eight million expected to have been shared online in 2025. As generative AI gets better at creating believable images and videos, experts and internet users alike beg the question: can the EU protect us against deepfakes?
Protected under GDPR - for now
The ChatEurope team spoke with Dr. Gianclaudio Malgieri, Associate Professor of Law & Technology at Leiden University, to understand the legal framework surrounding the use of our personal data to create deepfakes. From his perspective, the landmark General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) already protected Europeans, in principle, to a certain extent.
“When deepfakes use someone’s face or voice, that's typically personal data,” said Malgieri. “Our face is biometric, and it's sensitive data under certain conditions.” Hence, this personal data enjoys certain protections under the GDPR.
However, this protection could soon be lifted, thanks to the European Commission’s Omnibus proposals targeted at revising the GDPR and the AI Act.
Fun fact - the AI Act isn’t even fully in force yet, with a big chunk of its regulations initially meant to take effect in August 2026. This date has now been pushed back by an entire year - which means the EU would no longer be the first to strictly regulate AI.
What’s more, the protections against the spread of AI-generated content proposed by the Commission are far from adequate, said Malgieri.
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Tanishk Saha