Losing face? Licensing and governing AI content in China

China already has substantial laws governing faces. Under the Civil Code, portrait rights form part of a person’s broader personality rights. Individuals have rights over the production, use and publication of their likeness, while unauthorised fabrication or misuse through information technology can constitute an infringement.

Biometric information is also treated as sensitive personal information under China’s personal information protection regime. The 2025 Measures on the Security Management of Facial Recognition Technology Applications (Opens in new window), which came into force on 1 June 2025, define facial information as biometric information associated with an identified or identifiable natural person and establish requirements for the processing and protection of such information.

China also regulates generative AI. The Interim Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services (Opens in new window), effective since August 2023, cover generative services producing text, images, audio and video and explicitly connect AI governance with personal information, data security and the protection of individual rights.

Yet China’s emerging facial economy raises a governance question that goes beyond privacy and rights. It is also about value: when a face becomes a reusable AI asset, its value is not exhausted by the initial licensing fee. 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.

The question is therefore not only whether a person consented, but who shares in the ongoing value – and who bears the reputational cost – of an indefinitely productive likeness.

Licensing could offer people greater control over their likeness. But consent is not the end of the story. It should not become a one-time transaction for an indefinitely reproducible facial identity whose future uses cannot be anticipated.

This challenge cuts across portrait and personality rights, data protection, contract law, labour and the distribution of economic value. A meaningful licensing framework should specify permitted uses, duration and scope. It should also prohibit sensitive uses, enable traceability, and consider whether continued commercial use requires renewed consent or further payment.

The challenge for licensing and governing the face is not simply to prevent identity theft. 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.