Key Takeaways
- China treats facial likenesses as part of personality rights under its Civil Code and as sensitive biometric data under its personal‑information protection regime.
- The 2025 Measures on the Security Management of Facial Recognition Technology Applications formally define facial information as biometric data and set strict processing and protection standards.
- Generative AI services are governed by the Interim Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services (effective August 2023), linking AI oversight to data security and individual rights.
- The emerging “facial economy” turns a person’s face into a reusable AI asset, creating ongoing commercial value that far exceeds any initial licensing fee.
- Effective governance must go beyond one‑time consent: licensing frameworks should delineate permitted uses, duration, scope, prohibit sensitive applications, ensure traceability, and consider renewal of consent or additional compensation for continued exploitation.
Legal Foundations of Portrait Rights
China’s Civil Code embeds portrait rights within the broader category of personality rights. As the original text notes, “Individuals have rights over the production, use and publication of their likeness, while unauthorised fabrication or misuse through information technology can constitute an infringement.” This provision gives people a legal basis to control how their facial image is captured, reproduced, and disseminated, establishing a first line of defense against unauthorized use in both traditional media and emerging digital contexts.
Biometric Information Protection
Beyond portrait rights, facial data is classified as sensitive personal information under China’s personal‑information protection regime. The 2025 Measures on the Security Management of Facial Recognition Technology Applications—which came into force on 1 June 2025—explicitly define facial information as “biometric information associated with an identified or identifiable natural person” and lay out requirements for its processing, storage, and protection. These measures impose obligations on entities collecting facial data, including impact assessments, security safeguards, and limits on retention periods, thereby tightening the regulatory net around biometric use.
Regulation of Generative AI Services
China also addresses the intersection of facial likenesses and artificial intelligence through the Interim Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services, effective since August 2023. The measures cover generative services that produce text, images, audio, and video, and they “explicitly connect AI governance with personal information, data security and the protection of individual rights.” By tying generative AI output to existing data‑protection rules, the framework seeks to curb the unrestricted synthesis of faces that could otherwise bypass portrait‑rights safeguards.
The Facial Economy and Value Extraction
Despite these legal layers, the rapid growth of what scholars term the “facial economy” poses a governance challenge that extends beyond privacy. When a face becomes a reusable AI asset, its economic value is not exhausted by an initial licensing fee. As the source material observes, “A modest one‑off payment may enable repeated commercial use across advertisements, dramas and platforms, while the resulting value rests with AI firms, studios and distributors.” This dynamic creates a scenario where the individual’s likeness continues to generate revenue long after the original agreement, raising questions about fair compensation and ongoing control.
Beyond Consent: Governing Ongoing Value
The core issue, therefore, is not merely whether a person consented to the use of their likeness, but “who shares in the ongoing value – and who bears the reputational cost – of an indefinitely productive likeness.” Consent, if treated as a one‑time transaction, fails to anticipate the myriad future applications that AI‑driven synthesis can enable. Without mechanisms to revisit or adjust agreements, individuals risk being excluded from the upside of their own digital likeness while still bearing potential harms, such as deepfake misuse or unwanted association with controversial content.
Components of a Meaningful Licensing Framework
To address these gaps, a robust licensing regime should specify permitted uses, duration, and scope with precision. It must also prohibit sensitive applications—such as political manipulation or non‑consensual adult content—ensure traceability of how the facial data is employed, and determine whether continued commercial exploitation necessitates renewed consent or additional payment. Such a framework would bridge portrait rights, data‑protection law, contract principles, labor considerations, and the broader economics of value distribution, creating a more balanced ecosystem.
From Preventing Misuse to Enabling Agency
The challenge for licensing and governing the face is not simply to prevent identity theft or unauthorized cloning. It is to determine how real human faces can be governed when they become raw material for synthetic worlds, “from consent to taking control over where they go, what they do, and what value they generate.” By shifting the focus from static permission to dynamic stewardship, China’s legal evolution can empower individuals to retain agency over their digital likenesses while still fostering innovation in AI‑generated media.
In sum, China’s current legal architecture provides a solid foundation for protecting facial likenesses through portrait rights, biometric‑data safeguards, and AI‑specific regulations. Yet the burgeoning facial economy reveals a mismatch between static consent models and the enduring, monetizable nature of AI‑synthesized faces. A forward‑looking licensing approach—one that governs use, traces exploitation, and shares ongoing value—will be essential to reconcile individual rights with the commercial potentials of synthetic media.
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/losing-face-licensing-and-governing-ai-content-in-china