July 4, 2026
The complaint alleges the retailer created an AI-generated version of his likeness
Nigerian-Australian model Elii Emeghebo has filed a racial discrimination complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission, alleging menswear retailer Peter Jackson used artificial intelligence (AI) to digitally alter his appearance by lightening his skin and changing his facial features without his consent, raising new legal questions about AI’s growing role in advertising, Afrotech reports.
The complaint, first reported June 30 by ABC News Australia, alleges the retailer exceeded the terms of Emeghebo’s modeling agreement by creating and displaying an AI-generated version of his likeness in a Sydney storefront. According to the filing, his contract authorized the use of his original photographs only across the company’s digital platforms and did not permit AI-generated modifications or additional commercial uses.
Emeghebo said he discovered the altered image while walking past one of the retailer’s stores.
“My nose was reshaped, my skin tone and my eye colour was significantly lightened, and there’s some reshaping around my eyebrows and my eye shape to be more Eurocentric and a lot less black,” he told the Australian outlet.
“It’s not a good thing when you go from a shoot, something you’re really proud of … and you walk past the shop and see basically you, but without your identity there. It was really confronting and really unfair.”
Paloma Buhagiar Cole, principal legal officer at Victoria’s Young Workers Centre, which is representing Emeghebo, argued that responsibility lies with those who chose to publish the altered image.
“Human beings chose to use those particular images and decided the image that is devoid of Elii’s identity was the one they wanted to use,” Cole said.
“He had a very specific contract that allowed for specific use … so they haven’t actually paid for the use of that image here,” she added.
Peter Jackson acknowledged using “AI-assisted tools” that produced what it described as a “substantially transformed image” of Emeghebo but denied race played any role in the editing process.
The company said the model was fully compensated for the original photo shoot and maintained that his unaltered photographs were used in accordance with the parties’ agreement.
“Any suggestion that we intentionally engaged in racial discrimination is false, and we reject it unequivocally,” the company said.
The complaint adds to a growing number of disputes over AI-generated advertising, highlighting unresolved questions surrounding consent, compensation, and the legal protections afforded to models whose likenesses are digitally altered for commercial use.
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