'AI label' rule triggers unease, govt extends deadline for feedback

The government has extended the deadline for public consultation on draft rules for labelling AI-generated content by one week to November 13, responding to requests from industry stakeholders seeking more time to assess the proposals’ technical and operational implications.

- Sejal Sharma

The ministry of electronics and information technology (Meity) released the draft amendments on October 22, requiring all artificial intelligence (AI) tools and major social media platforms to embed permanent watermarks on synthetic content.

“In response to the representations received from several stakeholders, the ministry has decided to extend the last date for receipt of feedback/comments till 13th November, 2025," the IT ministry said in a notice on Thursday.

A number of think tanks, industry bodies and at least two Big Tech companies have pressed for more deliberation time to formulate detailed responses to rules they say could impose significant operational burdens, according to documents seen by HT.

The draft framework requires companies offering AI generation tools to embed permanent watermarks or metadata identifiers on all synthetic content, with visible labels on at least 10% of images and videos and audio identifiers during the first 10% of playback.

Industry executives and legal experts have flagged several concerns about the draft framework, particularly Rule 3(3), which places labelling obligations on intermediaries offering AI tools. The provision could make platforms responsible for proving whether every piece of content is "authentic"-a burden industry representatives described as heavy and unclear.