Cate Blanchett Launches the Human Consent Registry: Telling AI How It Can Use Your Identity
On June 23rd, Cate Blanchett presented the Human Consent Registry at the European Parliament in Brussels, a free public tool that allows anyone to declare in a machine-readable format whether and how AI can use their name, image, voice, and likeness. The tool is created by RSL Media, the nonprofit co-founded by Blanchett along with Nikki Hexum, Doug Leeds, and Eckart Walther. The launch announcement summarizes the stakes with Blanchett's words: "your identity is your intellectual property in the age of AI, and every person has the right to decide if and how AI can use it."
RSL Media was introduced in May, gathering support from numerous Hollywood names, including Javier Bardem, Viola Davis, Tom Hanks, Helen Mirren, and Meryl Streep; and in March 2025, Blanchett signed a letter with Paul McCartney, Ben Stiller, and over 400 artists sent to the Trump administration against the dismantling of copyright protections, in contrast to the positions of OpenAI and Google. The registry is the latest piece of this campaign. The launch was hosted by Bulgarian MEP Eva Maydell (EPP), one of the main negotiators of the EU AI Act, with the presence of director Steven Soderbergh.
How the Registry Works
The mechanism works like a traffic light. The rights covered in the first phase are name, image, likeness, voice, movements, and other personal attributes; for each, consent is set as allowed (green), conditionally allowed (yellow), or prohibited (red), and is translated into machine-readable signals. Underneath is the open protocol Really Simple Licensing (RSL), already widespread among digital publishers to define AI usage rights of content. Registration is free for individuals acting on their own, while representatives can operate through agents, guilds, or managers with an approved pathway; in both cases, it is necessary to create a Human Consent ID with identity verification, accessible from the public registry page. RSL Media plans to extend coverage in the future to three new areas: Work (works), Characters (characters), and Marks (trademarks).
How Is Consent Respected?
Currently, the registry does not foresee any binding mechanism to require AI companies to adhere to it: its effectiveness depends on the voluntary compliance of those training the models. Therefore, the tool aims to make consent explicit and standardized, hoping it will become a reference. This is the logic summarized by RSL Media's CEO, Nikki Hexum: consent is a human right, and a person must be able to say who they are, what they allow, what they do not allow, and what the safe way to reach them is when asking is necessary.
In the days leading to the launch, singer SZA denounced the use of over 200 of her songs to train AI models without consent, while actor Matthew McConaughey trademarked his image, voice, and the catchphrase "alright, alright, alright"; similar solutions, like Taylor Swift's trademark filing to defend her voice and image, have already been discussed. The Human Consent Registry attempts to offer everyone, not just those who can afford lawyers and agencies, a way to put their terms in writing. It remains to be seen if it will be sufficient without an obligation that makes it enforceable.