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NOPE
Low reported severity

Albanian actress Anila Bisha disputes government use of her image and voice for AI minister Diella

Albania's government presented an AI-generated public-procurement "minister" named Diella in September 2025. Actress Anila Bisha says the avatar's face and voice are hers. She says her contract covered use as a digital assistant on the e-Albania services portal and that she was never asked about the ministerial role. In February 2026 she asked the Tirana Administrative Court of First Instance for an interim measure to stop the use of her image and voice, and her representatives said they plan a formal lawsuit for damages. The government's media agency called the lawsuit nonsense. Anadolu Agency reported on 12 February 2026 that the court had not ruled on the request.

AI system
Diella
Occurred
11 Sept 2025
Reported
12 February 2026
Event location
Albania
What the AI did
Depicted or impersonated the person
Reported harm
Loss of Autonomy
Whose AI use
An institution’s AI use
Setting
Public services · Privacy
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts
5 claims: 1 disputed, 4 reported. 6 open questions
People reported harmed
At least 1 person

AI system as recorded: Diella (government AI-generated avatar)

Reported harm

Anila Bisha says the government's reuse of her image and voice for the AI minister deprives her of control over them, that no one asked her, that she feels the image is now used as a political statement, and that her filing describes "great, immediate and irreversible damage". These are her statements and the reported contents of her filing. The government rejects the claims and no court has ruled.

What remains unknown

  • The contract, the court filing and any court ruling were not inspected. The outcome of the interim-measure request is unknown.
  • Sources differ on whether a full lawsuit had been filed by mid-February 2026: AP says her representatives plan one, while Anadolu, BIRN and Tirana Times say she filed or is suing. BIRN names the Council of Ministers, a state-owned company, the National Agency of Information and the Prime Minister as defendants.
  • Reports do not state whether the avatar's voice is synthetic or how the image and voice were processed.
  • The date on which the government first used the face and voice as a digital assistant on e-Albania is not stated in the inspected sources and is outside the disputed use, which Bisha says began with the ministerial role.
  • A France 24 feature (26 February 2026) returned HTTP 403 and was not read. Albanian-language reporting cited by Anadolu Agency (News24, BalkanWeb) was not inspected.
  • The euro damages figure that appeared in a search summary was not found in any inspected body and is not stated in this record. AP reports only that her representatives plan a formal lawsuit for damages and compensation.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. Three news chains describe Diella as an AI-generated government minister (AA, BIRN, AP via NBC). The reports state that the avatar uses the affected person's image and voice. They do not state how the voice was produced.

5 claims: 1 disputed, 4 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported Albania's government presented Diella as an AI-generated minister for public procurement on 11 September 2025 (the date is given by Anadolu Agency). Diella had previously existed with the same image and voice as a digital assistant on the e-Albania portal.

Causal attribution. Descriptive of the government's deployment; no causal claim.

  • aa.com.tr(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Diella was appointed as Albania’s first AI-powered minister on Sept. 11, 2025
  • balkaninsight.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    It previously existed, with the same image and voice, as a digital assistant on the state’s e-Albania digital services portal.
  • nbcnews.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Albania introduced what it called the world’s first artificial intelligence minister last year.
Reported Anila Bisha says the face and voice of the AI minister are hers and that she was not consulted before the assistant was elevated to the ministerial role. She acknowledges a contract permitting use for the e-Albania platform.

Causal attribution. The sources report the connection between the AI-generated content and the reported consequence; no court or independent finding of causation was inspected.

Disputed The scope of the contract is disputed. Bisha says it covers only the e-Albania digital-assistant use. The government-run Media and Information Agency rejected her claims and called the lawsuit nonsense; the inspected sources do not report the agency's position on the contract text.

Causal attribution. Contract interpretation is unresolved in the inspected sources; the contract text was not inspected.

Reported In February 2026 Bisha asked the Tirana Administrative Court of First Instance for an interim measure to stop the use of her image and voice for the AI minister. The request says the use deprives her of control over her voice and image and causes her great, immediate and irreversible damage. The court had not ruled when Anadolu Agency reported.

Causal attribution. The filing's contents are reported by news outlets citing Albanian media reports of court documents; the filing itself was not inspected.

  • aa.com.tr(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Anila Bisha petitioned Tirana Administrative Court of First Instance to impose an interim measure suspending the use of her personal data
  • aa.com.tr(opens in new tab) supports · English
    effectively deprives her of control over her own voice and image
  • aa.com.tr(opens in new tab) supports · English
    are causing her "great, immediate and irreversible damage." The court has not yet issued a ruling on the suspension request.
  • nbcnews.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Bisha filed a formal request through an administrative court in Albania this week demanding the government immediately stop using her voice and image for Diella.
Reported Bisha says she tried several times to contact the government after the AI minister joined the Cabinet, received no response to a request for a meeting, and feels her image is used as a political statement.

Causal attribution. Statements by the affected person to a wire reporter.

  • nbcnews.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Bisha said she had tried to contact the government multiple times since the AI minister became part of the Albanian Cabinet last September.
  • nbcnews.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    She said she feels her image is now used as a political statement.

Sources

4 sources inspected, from 3 underlying accounts. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Event countries: Albania. Affected-person countries: Albania. Court countries: Albania.

Reports describe an Albanian actress, the Albanian government's e-Albania portal and Cabinet, and a filing at the Tirana Administrative Court of First Instance.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-29: Three news chains (AP via NBC, BIRN with a Tirana Times rewrite, Anadolu Agency) report the affected person's statements and the reported filing. The subject is a named public actress who discussed the matter with reporters. The government disputes the claims. Statements of harm and contract scope are reported allegations and no ruling is established.

People reported harmed in this case

At least 1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

One named public actress who is the subject of the avatar's face and voice and who filed the legal request. No other person is reported harmed.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Albanian actress Anila Bisha disputes government use of her image and voice for AI minister Diella. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-albania-actress-image-voice-used-for-government-ai-minister-diella

BibTeX

@misc{2025_albania_actress_image_voice_used_for_government_ai_minister_diella,
  title = {Albanian actress Anila Bisha disputes government use of her image and voice for AI minister Diella},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-albania-actress-image-voice-used-for-government-ai-minister-diella}
}

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