Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has filed an application with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) to register her voice as a sound trademark, a move that is expected to protect the official from voice spoofing using artificial intelligence and deepfakes.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has filed an application with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) to register her voice as a sound trademark, a move that is expected to protect the official from voice spoofing using artificial intelligence and deepfakes.
The application contains a four-second audio recording of Meloni repeating the phrase “Io sono Giorgia Meloni” twice in Italian. The phrase “Io sono Giorgia” is a reference to her famous 2019 speech, which later became a viral disco track and the title of her 2021 autobiographical book. The application is currently under review, Reuters reported .
The Italian Prime Minister has repeatedly been the victim of AI-generated content. Fake photos and audio recordings of her (including deepfake images of an intimate nature) have been systematically distributed online. Malone has publicly condemned such attacks, emphasizing that while she has the resources to defend herself in court, most ordinary citizens remain defenseless against such technologies.
Experts and Italian media outlets note that even if the EUIPO application is approved, the trademark will not be able to completely block the generation of its voice by neural networks. However, this step will create additional legal leverage and make it easier to block commercial or disinformational use of its timbre and intonations across all 27 EU countries.
This is not the first legal precedent for the politician: in 2024, Meloni already filed a civil lawsuit against a Sardinian resident who created and published pornographic deepfakes with her face. The case is still pending in an Italian court.
