Centre to tighten the noose on deepfakes

New Delhi: The central government is planning new regulations that may impose penalties on both creator and platform hosting deepfakes as it looks to clamp down on what IT and Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishaw described as a threat to democracy.

Amid some celebrities reporting their faces being manipulated onto another video, new protection regulations being considered will look at measures including watermarking AI-generated content, deepfake detection, rules for data bias, privacy and guards against concentration. “Deepfakes have emerged as a new threat to democracy. These can weaken trust in society and its institutions,” Vaishnaw said after meeting with various stakeholders, including social media platforms, Nasscom and other professors from the field of artificial intelligence (AI).

“We will start drafting the regulations today itself and within a very short timeframe, we will have a separate regulation for deepfakes,” he said.

The government, he said, would come up with actionable items on four pillars -- detection of deepfakes, preventing the spread of such content, strengthening reporting mechanisms, and spreading awareness on the issue -- within 10 days. All stakeholders present at the meeting shared similar concerns regarding deepfakes, he said.

“All social media platforms agreed to have extensive technology to detect deepfakes.” India has over 80 crore internet users, which are projected to cross 120 crore in two years.