25JUL

ITV News airs consented AI faces

2 min read

11:36UTC

ITV News and ITN used the UK licensing platform Twinnin to build the reenactment sequences in an Exposure documentary published around 24 July, with performers who consented and were credited on screen.

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Key takeaway

ITV News licensed the likenesses at source, a step no regulation currently requires of it.

ITV News and ITN used Twinnin, a UK likeness-and-voice licensing platform, to generate the reenactment sequences in the Exposure documentary "Terror In The Skies: The Liquid Bomb Plot", published around 24 July and presented by ITV News Global Security Editor Rohit Kachroo ¹. Twinnin recruited performers who consented to their likeness being used and who received an end-title credit for it.

Andrew Evans, the AI visual-effects artist on the programme, altered facial features, body shape and physique through prompts, so what reaches the screen is a stylised character rather than a digital copy of the contributor. AI also rebuilt locations too dangerous or remote to film, including the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas of northwestern Pakistan, where Al Qaeda ran training camps in the early 2000s. ITV News has used AI in entertainment output before; this is its first publicly disclosed use in current affairs.

Two different answers to the same regulatory problem are now visible in the same month. Eurovision Sport and Camb.AI shipped AI-generated commentary carrying an on-screen AI label from 16 July . One approach labels the output after the fact. The other licenses the input before it is made, with consent and payment agreed at source.

EU AI Act Article 50 will compel the labelling. Nothing compels the licensing, which is what makes Twinnin's category worth pricing rather than dismissing. A broadcaster reconstructing a live criminal case on screen wants a paper trail showing every face was licensed, because the exposure is defamation and image rights rather than transparency compliance. Consent at source, sold as a service, is a product with a buyer before it has a rulebook.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

ITV News and its news agency ITN used Twinnin, a UK company that licenses people's likeness and voice for AI-generated video, to create reenactment scenes for a documentary about the 2006 transatlantic liquid bomb plot. The performers who appeared agreed to take part and were credited at the end of the programme, rather than having their images used without permission. An AI visual-effects artist then altered the performers' facial features and body shape so the on-screen characters were stylised versions rather than exact digital copies of the real people. AI was also used to recreate locations, including remote areas of Pakistan, that would have been too dangerous or difficult to film in person.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

The UK has no codified right of publicity, unlike the US patchwork of state likeness laws underpinning SAG-AFTRA's contractual leverage.

That gap leaves consent-based licensing platforms like Twinnin operating on a purely contractual basis: a performer's protection exists because ITV and Twinnin chose to build consent and credit into the production process, not because a statute requires it.

What could happen next?

Precedent
ITV News' use of consented, credited AI reenactment in a current-affairs documentary gives UK broadcasters a named case study of a consent-based likeness model for factual, rather than entertainment, programming.
Opportunity
A working consent-and-credit template could let other UK current-affairs producers reconstruct dangerous or inaccessible locations and events without avoiding AI entirely or using likenesses without permission.

Sources:TVBEurope

Mentions:ITN →Twinnin →Rohit Kachroo →SAG-AFTRA →Camb.AI →Pakistan →EU AI Act Article 50 →Eurovision Sport →EU AI Act →ITV →

First Reported In

Update #10 · Netflix: 300 AI titles, none in the 10-Q

TVBEurope· 25 Jul 2026

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