Centre sets deepfake crackdown in motion

Action plan within 10 days, says IT minister after a meeting with representatives from AI, social media firms

- Aditi Agrawal

The Union government will bring in a new regulation to deal with deepfakes and so-called synthetic content online, IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Thursday after a meeting with social media and technology companies, an industry body, and academics. The form of the regulation is yet to be determined and it could be an act, new rules, or an amendment to existing rules, he added.

“We will start drafting the regulations today (Thursday) itself. And within a very short time-frame, we will have a new set of regulation on deepfakes,” the minister said.

Responding to a question, Vaishnaw said that there will be “extensive public consultation on the regulation” but did not clarify if the draft regulation would be put in the public domain for discussion.

Vaishnaw said that a nodal officer will be notified to receive feedback on the regulation.

Calling deepfakes a “new threat to democracy”, the minister said: “Deepfakes weaken trust in society and in its institutions. The use of social media is ensuring that deepfakes can spread significantly more rapidly without any checks, and they are getting viral within a few minutes of their uploading.”

The move comes days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged concerns over deepfakes at an interaction with journalists in the Capital.

The proposed regulation will have four pillars, Vaishnaw explained: detection, prevention, reporting, and awareness. Prevention, he said, is both about preventing deepfakes from being posted and preventing them from going viral. He added that reporting mechanisms need to be more proactive and time-sensitive to mitigate damage. It is understood that his meeting with the companies also focused on these four pillars.