The proliferation of deepfake technology that allows people to swap faces, voices and other characteristics to create digital forgeries on social media has prompted the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) to propose mandatory labelling of artificial intelligence-generated content.
The ministry on Wednesday published draft amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
In recent months, several celebrities, including Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, Akshay Kumar, Hrithik Roshan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan and Kumar Sanu, have sought injunctions against misuse of their identity online, mostly AI-generated. Several of them have secured orders for the removal of certain links and listings from various social media and e-commerce platforms.
The issue of deepfakes in India came to the fore in 2023 when a fake video appeared of actress Rashmika Mandanna entering a lift.
Back then, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said: “A new crisis is emerging due to deepfakes produced through artificial intelligence. There is a very big section of society which does not have a parallel verification system.” This was when a deepfake video of him doing the garba was circulating online.
A key proposed change involves “synthetically generated information” to mean “artificially or algorithmically created, generated, modified or altered using a computer resource in a manner that appears reasonably authentic or true”.
The draft amendments make labelling and traceability mandatory for synthetic content. In the case of images and videos, the label must cover “at least 10 per cent of the surface area of the visual display or, in the case of audio content, during the initial 10 per cent of its duration”.
Large social media platforms, referred to as “significant social media intermediary”, will be required to ask users to “declare” whether information is “synthetically generated information”, besides deploying “reasonable and appropriate technical measures, including automated tools or other suitable mechanisms” to verify the accuracy of such declaration. Verified or declared synthetic content needs to be clearly labelled or accompanied by a visible notice.
India is home to 954.4 million Internet users (till March 2024) and 95.15 per cent villages have access to the Internet with 3G/4G mobile connectivity.
The proposed updates are similar to laws followed in many countries. The Online Safety Act, introduced in Britain in 2023, has criminalised the sharing of deepfake
intimate images, whose creation is being facilitated by advances in artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, the US bill, known as the Take It Down Act, mandated social media platforms to remove sexually explicit images and videos of others that were taken or posted without consent, including AI-generated “deepfake” content within two days of being notified of them.
MeitY has invited public feedback on the amendments by November 6.