Equity has written to Fish Audio to demand the online platform removes all unauthorised cloned voices from their AI voice generator. This follows several complaints from Equity members who found their voice being misused and offered as an AI voice model on the platform without their consent. Equity has also demanded that the platform disclose “the manner in which the underlying recordings and associated biometric and personal data have been processed, distributed, licensed, transferred, or otherwise commercialised without the informed consent of the performers concerned.”
Fish Audio offers text to speech AI generated voices for use in content including audiobooks, chatbots and social media videos. Equity Industrial Official Shannon Sailing wrote to the platform on 22 May and is yet to receive a reply. We will continue to pursue Fish Audio on behalf of the 22 members involved so far and will keep you updated.
Dear Fish Audio,
I have received several complaints from Equity members around the misuse of their voice, and personal data, by your platform.
Equity will be pursuing each of these cases not only to request the immediate removal of the unauthorised AI voice models hosted on your platform, but also to require disclosure of the manner in which the underlying recordings and associated biometric and personal data have been processed, distributed, licensed, transferred, or otherwise commercialised without the informed consent of the performers concerned.
The voices in question belong to UK-based performers whose personal data and performances are protected under UK law, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018, and UK intellectual property and performers’ rights legislation.
A person’s voice constitutes personal data where an individual is identifiable from it, and AI voice cloning additionally engages serious issues concerning biometric processing, identity misuse, and unlawful commercial exploitation. Where such data has been processed without a lawful basis or without informed consent, UK GDPR provides data subjects with enforceable rights of access, erasure, restriction of processing, and transparency regarding onward transfers and recipients of that data.
With the above in mind, I am writing to seek the following on behalf of the Equity members listed at the end of this email, and any more Equity members that raise a similar concern with me in future:
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- Immediate removal of all unauthorised cloned voices and related datasets.
- Confirmation by Fish Audio of the lawful basis you had to process these recordings and voice models.
- Full disclosure of all third parties, platforms, licensees, affiliates, or commercial partners to whom these voice models, recordings, embeddings, datasets, or derivative AI models have been sold, licensed, transferred, or otherwise made available.
- Details of any international data transfers involving the performers’ data.
- Confirmation of the steps taken to cease further processing and dissemination of any recordings.
The names of the Equity members/claimants who have found their voices being illicitly used are listed below:
(22 Names, Equity Member 1, 2, 3 etc)
For clarity, those named above are the claimants who I am requesting you take the above mentioned steps to address the illicit use of their voices and personal data.
We expect there to be more claimants coming forward in due course so we will send you these at a later date.
Please note that any request for disclosure and erasure made under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 overrides any provisions within your private terms of service or Fish Audio’s privacy policies where statutory rights are engaged.
Please confirm by writing within 5 working days that you have read this letter and will be taking the above steps.
Please ensure the above steps have been carried out within 10 working days of receiving this letter. I will contact you the week of 8th May if you have not contacted me before then.
Yours sincerely
Shannon Sailing
Industrial Official
Equity
