British Fashion Industry Demands Tighter AI Controls to Protect Models

The fashion industry is putting up barriers to Artificial Intelligence (AI). The British Fashion Modeling Agents Association (Bfma), together with London-based modeling agency The Milk Collective, on Friday published a petition with more than 2,000 signatures calling on the UK Government to protect models from the use of their image by AI.

The Bfma petition, which represents more than 5.000 models, demands immediate recognition of individual image rights and the establishment of clear limits on AI use, further noting that models face the use of their images without consent or compensation, which could lead to drastic job losses in the industry.

“The model is the epicenter of the industry, if you remove her, everything else is neglected: you lose photographers, stylists, hairdressers and makeup artists; everyone who supports a photo shoot is no longer needed, that’s a risk,“ stated Bfma president John Horner.

H&M debuted last July its digital twins created with Artificial Intelligence in collaboration with models

The organization’s petition was published as part of London Fashion Week and although it is addressed to the UK government, Horner extends the range of responsibilities to all brands.we want brands to understand that this is not an uncontrolled situation, we are an endangered species, if they take away the model, there will be no industry left,“ he added to his statements.

The petition is supported by the British Fashion Council, Bectu, Bectu Fashion UK, Creative UK, The Association of Photographers, Creators’ Rights Alliance and Fashion Roundtable.

In the face of brands’ ability to generate AI images of models, model concerns have grown. Some brands have come to terms with this, such as H&M, which debuted its first AI-enabled digital twins in partnership with some models last July.