Indian government set to introduce rules against deepfake menace

India is formulating regulations to oversee deepfakes, the country’s Minister for Railways, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Nov. 23, expanding on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement the day before about his concerns about the technology.

According to a Reuters report, during discussions with academics, industry associations and social media firms, Vaishnaw said the Indian government aims to finish drafting the regulations in the coming weeks.

Deepfakes are realistic and often convincing artificial intelligence (AI)-generated videos or audio recordings that manipulate or replace the likeness and voice of a person in an existing video or audio clip. In the initial comments during a G20 virtual summit, Modi urged international leaders to collaborate in regulating AI and expressed worries about the adverse effects of deepfakes on society.

In the report, Vaishnaw said the regulatory drafting process will consider penalties for the individual uploading the content and the social media platform where it is posted. This development occurs as nations globally scramble to establish regulations for governing AI.

In October, United States President Joe Biden signed an executive order requiring developers of AI systems that pose risks to U.S. national security, the economy, public health or safety to share the results of safety tests with the U.S. government before they are released to the public.

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The United Nations has also formed a 39-member advisory body to tackle governance challenges in AI, and European legislators have crafted draft rules for potential approval next month. In November, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service — Canada’s primary national intelligence agency — raised concerns about the disinformation campaigns conducted across the internet using AI deepfakes.

In August, the Chinese police announced closer scrutiny of the Web3 sector, with Jinfeng Sun, political commissar of the Network Security Bureau, disclosing that there had been 79 cases of fraud involving deepfake AI, such as impersonation via digital face-swaps, leading to the arrest of 515 individuals.

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