Digital Resurrection and the Law: Regulating AI-Generated Replicas of the Deceased

Introduction

With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence, the way individuals use technology in their everyday lives has been transformed. Laws need to keep pace with this rapid advancement and create rules to keep new everyday creations and advancements in check. However, technological advancement has expanded beyond the scope of existing legal frameworks to the point that they are no longer sufficient to effectively regulate new developments. This is evident in a recent artificial intelligence development that creates and simulates replicas of deceased persons for a range of purposes. This raises an important legal, ethical and social question: do existing legal frameworks clearly regulate such behaviour?

A person’s digital presence, data, and AI-generated likeness after death sits at the intersection of privacy rights, inheritance law, intellectual property, contract law and artificial intelligence regulation. One of the most controversial, yet still under-discussed, developments of this new era of artificial intelligence is the emergence of “digital resurrection.” The concept involves using artificial intelligence to recreate deceased individuals through voice cloning, chatbots, virtual avatars and deepfake technology, drawing on the individual’s digital data accumulated during their lifetime, including emails, text messages, social media posts, voice recordings, photographs and videos. As a result, artificial intelligence systems can generate a highly realistic representation capable of mimicking a deceased person’s voice, attributes, personality, communication style and even memory.

While these advancements offer real benefits for remembrance, education, historical preservation and grieving families, they also raise significant ethical and legal concerns. The existing legal frameworks governing privacy rights, inheritance law, intellectual property, contract law, data protection and artificial intelligence regulation were developed well before the emergence of AI digital replicas. As a result, they provide limited guidance on ownership, control and the permissible use of a deceased person’s digital identity and personality.

A review of the laws discussed in this article reveals a clear legal gap: no regulations have been created, or are currently planned, to specifically address a deceased person’s digital footprint or the practice of digital resurrection. This suggests that current laws are inadequate to address the unique issues raised by digital resurrection, and that the question of how it should be regulated will only grow more pressing as artificial intelligence continues to advance.

Concept of Digital Resurrection

Definition

Digital resurrection is a new concept that gives grieving individuals who have recently lost loved ones a way to “communicate” with them, without turning to more traditional consultations with spiritualists or mediums. It refers to the use of artificial intelligence to recreate and simulate a deceased person’s appearance, voice, personality, mannerisms and communication style, using data accumulated during their lifetime.[1] This data includes emails, voice recordings, social media posts, text messages, photographs, videos and other digital footprints. By analysing this information, artificial intelligence systems can generate a virtual representation that imitates a deceased person’s appearance, communication style, voice, mannerisms and other attributes. Digital resurrection therefore enables the creation of chatbots, avatars, deepfakes and other interactive systems, allowing a person to engage with a digital representation of a deceased loved one, or of a desired public figure who has died.

Technological Development

Digital resurrection reflects the significant acceleration of artificial intelligence capability: what began as simple online memorials and archived digital content has recently evolved into sophisticated interactive avatars, chatbots and deepfakes capable of engaging in conversations about contemporary events beyond the period in which the individual lived. Innovations in machine learning, natural language processing, generative AI, deepfake technology and voice synthesis have made it possible to create highly realistic digital replicas of individuals, whether deceased or living. Modern artificial intelligence systems are now able to analyse vast amounts of personal data and generate responses that closely resemble the personality and behavioural patterns of the deceased individual. While there are genuine benefits to this advancement in areas such as memorialisation, education and historical preservation, it cannot be disregarded that it also creates significant legal challenges relating to a deceased individual’s privacy, consent, identity and posthumous rights.

Existing Legal Frameworks

Privacy Rights

Privacy laws relevant to digital resurrection follow a broadly similar pattern across jurisdictions, including the European Union, the United States, India and the United Kingdom: they protect the personal data of living individuals but do not extend to the deceased. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is intended to safeguard fundamental rights, such as privacy and the right to control one’s own data, but it does not recognise the deceased as falling within its protection.[2] Recital 27 expressly states that the Regulation does not apply to the personal data of deceased persons, creating a legal gap in which a deceased person’s personal data, including emails, photographs, social media posts, text messages, voice recordings and videos, remains available as a digital footprint that can potentially be used by a third party. In the context of digital resurrection, AI developers can use the information of deceased persons to create and simulate chatbots, voice mimics and avatars, without clear GDPR restrictions applying. In short, the dead have no right to privacy in any meaningful legal sense, and the deceased do not qualify for constitutional privacy protection, as they can no longer be harmed by invasion of privacy or defamation.

Inheritance Law

Inheritance law is a family-oriented legal institution governing the rights of a deceased person’s heirs to inherit property and legal rights upon their death.[3] It covers both the tangible and intangible assets of a deceased person’s estate. Tangible property refers to physical assets, such as personal belongings, vehicles, real estate and household items, that can be held, touched and moved. Intangible property, by contrast, lacks physical form but still holds value, such as financial accounts, intellectual property, digital assets, insurance policies, stocks and bonds.[4] Although inheritance law already covers certain digital assets, including cryptocurrency, domain names, social media accounts and digital files, digital resurrection introduces a new category that does not sit comfortably within “digital assets”: digital identity and personal data, which inheritance law was not designed to handle. Digital resurrection is concerned primarily with personal identity and identity traits, rather than property, which is the traditional focus of inheritance law. Inheritance law does not clearly answer whether heirs inherit a person’s voice, likeness or personality; whether they can authorise AI replication of the deceased; or whether ownership of an account includes the right to simulate that person’s identity. Inheritance law is therefore inadequate to regulate digital resurrection, as its focus is designed around property, treating digital remains as an asset rather than as identity.

Intellectual Property

Intellectual property law deals with a category of intangible rights arising from creations of the mind, such as inventions, literary and artistic works, designs, symbols, names and images that are considered commercially valuable products of human intellect.[5] Intellectual property comes closer than most other fields to addressing digital resurrection, because AI systems typically rely on a deceased person’s expressive outputs to generate content. However, existing rights such as copyright do not adequately address the legal complexities of digital resurrection, because digital resurrection does not directly implicate those rights in the way infringement analysis requires. Copyright, one of the core rights within IP law, does not fit well here because digital resurrection does not merely copy content; it analyses that content to generate new outputs mimicking style, voice and personality, which fall outside the scope of copyright protection. Copyright protects specific works, not an individual’s identity, personality or communication style, particularly in the case of a deceased person. Intellectual property law is therefore insufficient to regulate digital resurrection: it protects the works themselves, not the human identity behind them, and outputs that closely resemble the deceased can still avoid infringement claims.

Contract Law

Contract law is the body of law that governs the creation and enforceability of agreements between parties, ensuring they are legally binding and enforceable in court.[6] Digital resurrection intersects with this area of law because much of an individual’s digital presence is governed by contractual agreements with online platforms, accepted upon sign-up. This includes social media accounts, email services, cloud storage and other digital services, which operate through terms of service agreements defining users’ rights and obligations. Following an individual’s death, these terms are the primary tools for determining whether accounts may be accessed by family members, memorialised, or deleted at the platform’s discretion. However, most terms and conditions were drafted before digital resurrection technology existed, and they do not directly address whether personal data or identity may be used to create AI-generated replicas. Although contract law offers some insight into what happens to an individual’s account, it does not offer guidance on the posthumous use of a person’s voice, likeness or personality. Contract law therefore only indirectly engages with digital resurrection and fails to adequately address the issue.

Artificial Intelligence Regulations

Artificial intelligence regulation refers to the fragmented patchwork of emerging global and local legal frameworks governing the development, deployment and use of AI systems, most prominently driven by the EU Artificial Intelligence Act.[7] Of the legal frameworks analysed in this article, AI regulation is the most directly relevant to digital resurrection, since artificial intelligence is the core technology used to recreate and simulate deceased individuals. AI systems that create deepfakes, voice clones or digital avatars may fall within “generative AI” provisions requiring evidence that the content is not used deceptively. However, this is unlikely to be the primary basis for regulating digital resurrection, because AI laws are generally designed to regulate risk, safety and misuse, not posthumous identity or digital personhood. Existing AI regulations do not address whether it is appropriate for AI to replicate a deceased person’s identity with or without consent, which shows that even the area of law most directly connected to this technology does not squarely address the issue. AI regulation provides important safeguards for transparency and safety, but it has not yet developed a framework for resolving the core legal question of who controls a deceased person’s digital identity.

Critical Analysis

Arguments for Imposing Regulation

There are two sides to the debate over whether regulation should be introduced for this emerging issue. Arguments in favour of regulating digital resurrection specifically are grounded in protecting the autonomy, privacy and dignity of the deceased, not just the living. First, regulation would help prevent the misuse of a deceased person’s identity. Advancing technology allows digital replicas to recreate a deceased person’s voice, likeness and personality, which can then be used for harmful purposes, including commercial exploitation, fraud, misinformation or manipulation directed at strangers or grieving loved ones who are often unable to respond effectively. This places both the living and the deceased at risk, even though the deceased, strictly speaking, cannot be “harmed” by statements attributed to them that they never made or that do not reflect their actual wishes. In addition, regulation would help protect families from unwanted digital recreations to which they are highly exposed while still grieving and psychologically vulnerable, which can prolong and intensify the grieving process. Imposing regulation would therefore help avoid a legal vacuum in which identity, once tied to a living person, becomes a freely exploitable digital resource with no meaningful legal consequences.

Arguments Against Imposing Regulation

Conversely, imposing regulation specifically targeting this technology risks hindering innovation and the broader progression of artificial intelligence. Digital replicas serve valuable purposes, including remembrance, education, historical preservation, cultural heritage and emotional support for grieving families. Broad posthumous rights and explicit regulation of digital resurrection would create uncertainty for researchers, developers and content creators, raising further legal issues by limiting freedom of expression, itself a fundamental right. There are also instances where there is a strong public interest in using a deceased person’s likeness or contributions, which must be weighed before any restriction is imposed; certain rights are not meant to continue indefinitely once a person has died. An overly restrictive regulatory regime aimed specifically at digital resurrection therefore risks impeding technological progress and creating unnecessary barriers to its beneficial applications.

Conclusion

Artificial intelligence regulation should be extended to cover this new development without stifling innovation or the continued progression of artificial intelligence. Laws exist to regulate and safeguard the benefits that new technologies bring to society, and digital resurrection is edging closer to causing harm to individuals than serving as a purely beneficial advancement. This is what lawmakers will need to reconsider going forward. This article’s analysis highlights that existing legal frameworks only partially address the issues raised by digital resurrection, because they were originally designed to handle other subject matter rather than the new category introduced by digital resurrection: digital identity and personal data. Significant legal gaps therefore remain, and the current legal position is fragmented and insufficiently equipped to deal with the complexities of digital resurrection.

References

Online Journal Articles
Haneman V, ‘The Law of Digital Resurrection’ (2025) 66(5) Boston College Law Review <https://bclawreview.bc.edu/articles/10.70167/YOEQ2314> accessed 19 June 2026.
Haneman V, ‘The Law of Digital Resurrection’ (2025) ResearchGate <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/392220047_The_Law_of_Digital_Resurrection> accessed 19 June 2026.
Weiss MJ, ‘Contract Law’ (2021) EBSCO <https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/law/contract-law-0> accessed 22 June 2026.

Websites
Byrne P, ‘Does the Data Protection Legislation Apply to the Dead?’ (PropelFwd) <https://propelfwd.com/does-data-protection-legislation-apply-to-the-dead/> accessed 19 June 2026.
Dorcey Law Firm, ‘Tangible vs. Intangible Assets in Estate Planning’ (15 November 2024, dorceylaw.com) <https://www.dorceylaw.com/blog/2024/november/tangible-vs-intangible-assets-in-estate-planning/> accessed 21 June 2026.
EU Artificial Intelligence Act, ‘The EU Artificial Intelligence Act’ (artificialintelligenceact.eu) <https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/> accessed 22 June 2026.
Legal Information Institute, ‘Inheritance’ (June 2020, Cornell Law School) <https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/inheritance> accessed 21 June 2026.
Sherwood H, ‘Digital Resurrection: Fascination and Fear over the Rise of the Deathbot’ (10 August 2025, The Guardian) <https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/aug/10/artificial-intellligence-avatar-death-grief-digital-resurrection-fascination-deathbot> accessed 19 June 2026.
Torlo O, ‘Digital Resurrection: Immortality or Imposter’ (20 April 2025, LinkedIn) <https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/digital-resurrection-immortality-imposter-alexandr-torlo-udiif/> accessed 19 June 2026.
World Intellectual Property Organization, ‘What is Intellectual Property?’ (2020, wipo.int) <https://www.wipo.int/en/web/about-ip> accessed 22 June 2026.

Footnotes

[1] Victoria Haneman, ‘The Law of Digital Resurrection’ (2025) 66(5) Boston College Law Review <https://bclawreview.bc.edu/articles/10.70167/YOEQ2314> accessed 19 June 2026.
[2] Paul Byrne, ‘Does the Data Protection Legislation Apply to the Dead?’ (PropelFwd) <https://propelfwd.com/does-data-protection-legislation-apply-to-the-dead/> accessed 19 June 2026.
[3] Legal Information Institute, ‘Inheritance’ (June 2020, Cornell Law School) <https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/inheritance> accessed 21 June 2026.
[4] Dorcey Law Firm, ‘Tangible vs. Intangible Assets in Estate Planning’ (15 November 2024, dorceylaw.com) <https://www.dorceylaw.com/blog/2024/november/tangible-vs-intangible-assets-in-estate-planning/> accessed 21 June 2026.
[5] World Intellectual Property Organization, ‘What is Intellectual Property?’ (2020, wipo.int) <https://www.wipo.int/en/web/about-ip> accessed 22 June 2026.
[6] Marcia J Weiss, ‘Contract Law’ (2021) EBSCO <https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/law/contract-law-0> accessed 22 June 2026.
[7] EU Artificial Intelligence Act, ‘The EU Artificial Intelligence Act’ (artificialintelligenceact.eu) <https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/> accessed 22 June 2026.