“Io sono Giorgia Meloni”: the Italian Prime Minister wants to register her voice as a trademark to protect herself from deepfakes

Being able to get a political leader to say anything used to require a certain amount of editing work, starting from a declaration. Artificial intelligence now makes it possible to do without it: Giorgia Meloni therefore intends to take precautions.

Monday October 5, the Italian Prime Minister asked the European Union intellectual property office to register an extract of her voice as a trademark, to better challenge deepfakes which attribute to her comments that she never made. The extract lasts four seconds: Meloni repeats twice “Io sono Giorgia Meloni”, or “I am Giorgia Meloni”, a summary presentation of which she wishes to maintain control. The request, confirmed by its services, is still under examination.

Meloni would be the first leading politician to take this step against these sounds, images or videos faked by artificial intelligence. Some of these videos recently showed the Italian Prime Minister promoting financial investments. Still others used an imitation of her voice to call on voters to remove her from power in the run-up to the 2027 legislative elections.

The sentence chosen for the deposit is not entirely unknown to Italians. On October 19, 2019, during the rally of Italian rights “Orgoglio italiano” (“Italian Pride”), organized in San Giovanni square in Rome against the government of Giuseppe Conte, the head of Fratelli d’Italia declared: “I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am Christian.” Transformed into a piece of electronic music with satirical intent, the extract went viral, then was taken up by his supporters. In 2021, “Io sono Giorgia” was also the title of his autobiography.

It remains to be seen what this approach will achieve. Trademark law can protect certain sound signs, but the application relates to the registration submitted to the European office. Even if approved, it would not give Meloni general control over all reproductions of his voice, nor would it automatically prevent AI imitations. Meloni had already initiated proceedings in 2024 against a man accused of having created and distributed fake pornographic content using his face. The case remains pending.