The 269th Block: Do you have the rights to your own features?

Now, the Danes definitely do!

Jun 29, 2025

This week…

Your reading time is about 5 minutes. Let’s start.

I’m in the final week of the semester. I have that big end-of-module assignment due in a few days. I wrote almost 5,000 words on it, and cut it down to 2,300, and it will get a couple hundred more words from proper in-text citations to meet the 2,500 word count. This assignment has been consuming my mind for weeks. I probably won’t share it on The Extra Mile like I did with some of my other essays because of the format of the assignment (POSTNote-style policy brief for the UK government) but it’s probably Trump’s worst nightmare: DEI in outerspace. And because it’s international law, it’s really a miserable subject to have on one’s mind because looking at the state of the world, is international law even a thing? Bsfr.

Your Wikipedia this week: Tetris effect

And now, a selection of top stories on my radar, a few personal recommendations, and the chart of the week.

ICYMI: The Previous Block was about Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report, press freedom, and AI slop. (Timeloop, remember?)

CORRECTION NOTICE: None notified.

DATA PRIVACY

Denmark to tackle deepfakes by giving people copyright to their own features

Miranda Bryant for The Guardian:

The Danish government is to clamp down on the creation and dissemination of AI-generated deepfakes by changing copyright law to ensure that everybody has the right to their own body, facial features and voice.
The Danish government said on Thursday it would strengthen protection against digital imitations of people’s identities with what it believes to be the first law of its kind in Europe.
Having secured broad cross-party agreement, the department of culture plans to submit a proposal to amend the current law for consultation before the summer recess and then submit the amendment in the autumn.
It defines a deepfake as a very realistic digital representation of a person, including their appearance and voice.
The Danish culture minister, Jakob Engel-Schmidt, said he hoped the bill before parliament would send an “unequivocal message” that everybody had the right to the way they looked and sounded.
He told the Guardian: “In the bill we agree and are sending an unequivocal message that everybody has the right to their own body, their own voice and their own facial features, which is apparently not how the current law is protecting people against generative AI.”
He added: “Human beings can be run through the digital copy machine and be misused for all sorts of purposes and I’m not willing to accept that.”

Loosely linked:

Europeans seek digital sovereignty as US tech firms embrace Trump by Thomas Escritt for Reuters.
How Internet of Things devices affect your privacy – even when they’re not yours by David Sella-Villa (University of South Carolina) for The Conversation.
Mattel and OpenAI have partnered up – here’s why parents should be concerned about AI in toys by Andrew McStay (Bangor University) for The Conversation.
Malaysia’s metadata controversy: Surveillance in the guise of statistics by Nuurrianti Jalli for Fulcrum.
16 billion password data breach hits Apple, Google, Facebook and more – Live updates and how to stay safe by Darragh Murphy for Tom’s Guide.
Who is most at risk from the billions of leaked Facebook and Google passwords? by Damilare Dosunmu for Rest of World.

THE PRESS

CapCut’s policy update raises major red flags for newsrooms

Erika Marzano for Journalism.co.uk:

CapCut — the Chinese, ByteDance-owned video editing app behind countless viral TikToks and Instagram Reels — has become a newsroom staple for fast, mobile-first storytelling.
However, its newly updated terms of service, rolled out quietly on 12 June 2025, should prompt urgent scrutiny from any journalist or editor relying on the platform to produce vertical video.
Under these new terms, users grant CapCut and its partners a global, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free license to use any content uploaded to the app. That includes the right to reproduce, distribute, modify, and sublicense the material, without notifying the user or offering compensation. Even more concerning, CapCut considers all uploaded content to be non-confidential.
This has serious implications for journalists. It means editorial footage, branded content, exclusive interviews, or even sensitive raw material could be repurposed, recontextualised, or monetised by a third party without the journalist’s knowledge or consent. Even more concerning, the terms allow CapCut and its partners to use a journalist’s username, face, or voice to publicly identify them as the source of a video, including in sponsored content or advertising. For journalists working in sensitive environments or reporting under their real names, this creates significant risks around visibility and misuse.

Loosely linked: