Govt Deepfake Crackdown: IT Ministry Enforces 100% Compliance On Internet Platforms, To Appoint Officer

Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Friday said starting today (November 24), the IT ministry and the Centre will nominate a rule seven officer and will take 100 per cent compliance from all the platforms.

The Centre had a "very long" meeting with all of the important players on the Internet as well as the the Internet intermediaries today.

As the government sets deepfake crackdown in motion, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Friday said starting today (November 24), the IT ministry and the Centre will nominate a rule seven officer and will take 100 per cent compliance from all the platforms, in a bid to deal with the so-called synthetic content and deefake online, the media has reported.

"We have further informed the platforms that from today onwards, MeitY and the Government of India will nominate a Rule Seven officer and will take a 100 per cent compliance expectation from all the platforms... As far as harms are concerned, that includes deepfakes and also includes CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material), also includes various other categories of content that are prohibited on the Indian Internet," the MoS was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

The Centre had a "very long" meeting with all of the important players on the Internet as well as the the Internet intermediaries today and the issue of deepfakes was discussed with them. 

This development comes a day after Union Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that regulations will be formed to check the spread of deepfakes on social media platforms, and termed them a “new threat to democracy”.

"I reminded them that way back from October 2022, the government of India has been alerting them to the threat of misinformation and deepfakes, which are part of misinformation. The intermediaries today all agreed that the current IT rules under the IT Act provide for adequate compliance requirements on their part to deal with deepfake, even as we speak to future regulations and a future law, which is certainly required, given that our IT Act is 23 years old," Chandrasekhar added as per ANI.

The Internet platforms were reminded again, to which they agreed, that the current law provides for compliance requirements by them on misinformation, patently false information and deepfakes.

"This has been agreed to by the platforms. I have urged them today and have said that we will follow it up with an advisory and a directive that all platforms must align their and transform their terms of use with their users to be consistent with the twelve areas that are prohibited on the Indian Internet and the platforms have agreed in seven days to ensure that harmonization and that alignment so that every user on every platform is aware that when they use a platform, the platform intends to be a safe and trusted," the MoS IT stated.

Earlier this week, Chandrasekhar emphasised the government's unwavering commitment to protecting citizens from misinformation, especially that originating from artificial intelligence (AI) and deepfakes.