Nearly 80 UK actors, including Nicola Coughlan and Hugh Bonneville, ask the government to make voice a protected legal right

Nearly 80 UK actors, narrators and singers -- including Nicola Coughlan, Hugh Bonneville, Matt Lucas, Siobhan McSweeney and Luke Evans -- have signed an open letter to Prime Minister Andy Burnham asking the government to grant every person in Britain statutory ownership of their own voice, campaign group Save Our Voices Now announced August 28. The group has also launched a UK government petition making the same request.

"In just three seconds, with the right AI system, your voice can be cloned, stolen and reinterpreted without your knowledge," said Save Our Voices Now founder Peter Caulfield, who cited naturalist David Attenborough's voice as having been cloned without consent -- in Caulfield's own account -- "tens of thousands of times." The campaign says it is not opposed to AI itself: its letter frames the ask as being "opposed to theft," not to the technology. Actor Siobhan McSweeney, known for Derry Girls, said her voice is "one of my tools" and that she wants to work alongside AI rather than be replaced by it, arguing audiences "want that human connection, not AI."

The letter asks specifically that any statutory voice right be enforceable in UK courts regardless of where the offending platform is based -- a direct response to how AI voice-cloning tools are typically hosted outside UK jurisdiction. It draws an explicit comparison to Denmark, which is drafting legal reforms to give citizens ownership over their own face, body and voice, including the right to demand removal of unauthorized AI content and seek compensation. The UK government's response so far, per reporting on the letter, is a promised consultation rather than draft legislation -- leaving the actual drafting problem, like how a statutory voice right would carve out legitimate uses such as medical or accessibility applications, still unresolved.