Palmer, Walker & Trippier Back AI Deepfake Campaign

Cole Palmer, Kyle Walker and Kieran Trippier are among a group of footballers backing a campaign calling for stronger legal protection against unauthorised AI-generated content and deepfakes.

The England internationals are supporting the “My Name, My Face” campaign, which calls for the UK government to introduce specific personality-rights legislation.

The campaign, launched by law firm Mills & Reeve and supported by FIFPRO and the Professional Footballers’ Association, aims to give individuals greater control over the use of their identity, including their name, likeness and voice.

The push comes as AI technology makes it increasingly easy to create realistic images, videos and audio that appear to show or feature real people without their consent.

Lucy Bronze, another footballer supporting the campaign, described the rise of deepfakes as unsettling and warned that realistic fake content can affect both the person depicted and those who see or share it.

The UK government has also acknowledged gaps in the current legal framework. Its recent report on copyright and AI said existing protections do not cover all situations involving unauthorised digital replicas and proposed exploring whether a new digital-replica or personality right would be appropriate.

The government has already introduced stronger criminal protections for certain forms of non-consensual intimate deepfake material, while separately examining broader protections for people's image, voice and identity.

For Palmer, Walker, Trippier and the other footballers supporting the campaign, the issue is therefore about more than football content. They are calling for people to have greater legal control over how their identities can be reproduced and used through AI.