UK performers voted 99.6 percent to act over AI

The shot

Equity, describing itself in its own published material as the UK performing arts and entertainment trade union with a hundred-year history, distinct from SAG-AFTRA and from the broader crew union BECTU, runs an active campaign titled 'Stop AI Stealing the Show', retrieved 16 September 2026, calling on the UK government to create a new system of personality rights over a performer's voice, face and body. The same page states that the government's own consultation on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence closed 25 February 2025, and that Equity submitted its own response.

What the documents show

The campaign page reports Equity's own member-survey findings: 94 percent of surveyed performers working in AI think government should regulate deepfakes, 93 percent want new legal protections, and 79 percent felt they lacked a full understanding of performers' rights before signing a contract; these are self-reported figures, not an independently audited poll. The page also documents an active dispute. Negotiating with the Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television, the UK screen trade body for independent production and distribution companies, Equity states PACT is 'refusing to meet' its AI demands, and that a December 2025 indicative ballot of members under the PACT TV and cinema agreement since 2021 returned 99.6 percent support, on 75.1 percent turnout, for willingness to refuse being digitally scanned on set absent adequate protections. Separately, Equity's own AI Vision Statement sets out eight principles, including a consent right that 'cannot be assigned or waived' for past, current and future performances, time-limited licensing, fair remuneration, and engagement under a collectively bargained agreement.

The workflow

For a UK production engaging a performer for anything resembling performance cloning, Equity's own Vision Statement states the practical asks directly: written, revocable consent before a likeness is recorded, used or reproduced by machine-learning systems, time-limited rather than perpetual licensing, and remuneration that accounts for the scope and duration of use rather than a single flat fee. None of this is yet enacted law; it is Equity's stated position, and the PACT negotiation record on the same page shows the union has not yet secured these terms in its own sector agreement as of the ballot result reported.

What the tool does not change

A union's demand list and an industrial ballot are not a ratified agreement clause. The 99.6 percent ballot result measures member willingness to act, reported by Equity itself, not a concluded PACT commitment; the page states any move to a binding strike-adjacent ballot depends on how PACT responds.

• Does a production's current PACT-governed contract already include the consent and remuneration terms Equity's Vision Statement asks for, or are these still under negotiation?
• Is a cited performer-sentiment statistic Equity's own member survey, or an independently conducted study?
• Has the indicative ballot's 99.6 percent result since converted into a formal industrial-action vote or a settled agreement?

Equity's own campaign material documents a union actively bargaining for AI-specific consent and remuneration terms rather than one already operating under them, a distinction any production relying on a claim that Equity already has AI protections should check against the current state of its own PACT agreement.