Label all Al media: Draft rules to fight deepfakes

The government on Tuesday released draft regulations that would require all artificial intelligence tools and major social media platforms to prominently label AI-generated content, marking India's first comprehensive attempt to regulate deepfakes and synthetic media.

- Sejal Sharma

The ministry of electronics and information technology (Meity) has invited public feedback on the proposed amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, with submissions due by November 6.

In its official notice released, Meity said the amendments were prompted by growing concerns over AI misuse. "With the increasing availability of generative AI tools and the resulting proliferation of synthetically generated information (commonly known as deepfakes), the potential for misuse of such technologies to cause user harm, spread misinformation, manipulate elections, or impersonate individuals has grown significantly," the ministry stated.

It added: "Recognising these risks, and following extensive public discussions and parliamentary deliberations, MeitY has prepared the present draft amendments." Under the draft framework, companies offering AI generation tools must embed permanent visible watermarks or metadata identifiers on all synthetic content. For images and videos, labels must cover at least 10% of the display area, while audio content must carry identifiers during the first 10% of playback duration.