Is it legal to clone someone's voice?

The answer depends on the use, and the laws we checked target misuse. None of the rules we read makes making a clone for yourself illegal. The rules that apply to a cloned voice cover fraud, robocalls, commercial use of a person's voice and the collection of voice data. If you clone someone else's voice without their consent, the risk comes from what the clone is used for, and in some places from the consent rules that apply to the voice itself. This is general information, not legal advice, and the rules differ by place.

Using a clone to deceive someone for money is fraud

The clearest line is fraud. The federal wire fraud statute makes it a crime to run a scheme to get money or property by false pretenses, carried out by wire, radio or television communication, and it sets a maximum of 20 years in prison ¹. A scam that uses a cloned relative's voice on a phone call fits that pattern, and the FBI has warned of AI voice messages sent to impersonate senior US officials ².

A clone does not change the offense. The harm is the deception and the payment. That is why the same scam is illegal whether the voice was cloned, recorded or read by an actor.

AI voices in robocalls fall under US call rules

In February 2024 the Federal Communications Commission ruled that voices generated by artificial intelligence are artificial voices under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act ³. That ruling means AI-generated robocalls are covered by the rules that govern artificial and prerecorded voices. It targets the call, not the making of the clone.

Some states protect a voice as property

Tennessee has gone further. Its ELVIS Act defines a voice as a sound in a medium that is readily identifiable and attributable to a particular individual, including a simulation of the voice ⁴. The act took effect on July 1, 2024 ⁵. A person who violates it is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor ⁶.

The Tennessee law is about unauthorized use of a voice that people can identify, which makes it closer to a publicity right than to a ban on cloning. It applies in Tennessee only, and other states may have their own rules.

Biometric and AI rules treat voice data as sensitive

Voice data also falls under privacy rules. Illinois counts a voiceprint as a biometric identifier under its Biometric Information Privacy Act ⁷, which controls how a company collects and stores that data. In the EU, Article 50 of the AI Act requires a deployer of a deepfake to disclose that the content has been artificially generated or manipulated ⁸, and its start date is 2 August 2026 ⁹.

These rules are mostly about companies and disclosure. A private person who clones a voice for a scam is not protected by a disclosure rule, and the fraud rules apply instead.

It depends: the same clone can be legal or illegal

Recording a conversation is a separate question from cloning it. About 11 US states primarily require every party to consent before a conversation is recorded ¹⁰, and federal law does not bar a recording when one party consents ¹¹. Our guide to recording consent laws explains the differences, and the answer changes with where each person is when the call is made.

What to do before you clone someone else's voice

1. Get written consent from the person before you clone their voice for any purpose beyond a private test, and say what the clone will be used for.
2. Do not use a clone to ask for money, data or a change to an account. That use is fraud whatever the intention.
3. Check the rules where you and the other person live. A state or country can apply its own voice-rights, call or recording rules.

If you are the target of a cloned voice, the rules help you only after the harm has happened, so the practical protection is on the call itself. Our question on how to protect yourself from voice cloning scams sets out the checks to use. For the related question of how much audio it takes to clone a voice, see the answer on that page, and for the research and regulators in one place, read our guide to voice cloning and deepfakes. A voice clone is the thing these rules are aimed at, and biometric data is the category that covers a voiceprint.