Draft deepfake rules not practical: Industry body

A Key industry body has warned that the governments proposed law amendments to regulate deepfakes and ‘Al-generated content, or synthetically generated information (SGN), are “unimplementable and would undoubtedly result in large-scale disruptions to various segments of India’s digital economy.”

- Sejal Sharma

The Internet and Mobile Association of India ([AMAI) submitted its recommendations on the recently proposed amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules to the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) late Thursday evening. The ministry had extended its date for public consultation from November 6 to 13 after receiving requests from multiple industry players.

IAMAI, whose members include Google, Meta, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Zomato, Groww, Airbnb, Amazon, Apple, Jio, Airtel, Netflix, Ola, and Reddit, held several consultations, and listed their concerns in an Il-page submission seen by HT.

The biggest concern large social media companies have with the proposed amendments isrule 4(/A), said a person closely associated with [AMAL The rule requires significant social media intermediaries (SSMIs) to obtain user declarations on whether content is synthetically generated, deploy “reasonable and proportionate” technical measures to verify those declarations, and ensure that such content is Clearly labelled.

TAMAI said in its submission that verifying user declarations on every post is neither technically feasible nor legally sound. It