India is actively working on crafting regulations to govern deepfake technology, as revealed by Ashwini Vaishnaw, the country’s Minister for Railways, Communications, Electronics, and Information Technology.
This announcement follows Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent expression of concerns about the potential negative impacts of deepfakes. In discussions with academics, industry associations, and social media firms, Vaishnaw emphasized the government’s goal to finalize the regulations in the coming weeks.
Deepfakes, which are AI-generated videos or audio recordings manipulating a person’s likeness and voice, have raised global regulatory concerns. India’s regulatory approach is expected to include penalties for both content uploaders and the platforms hosting such content.
This development aligns with the international trend of nations working to establish comprehensive AI governance regulations. In October, U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order requiring AI developers to share safety test results for systems posing risks to national security.
The United Nations and European legislators are also actively addressing governance challenges in AI. Additionally, concerns about disinformation campaigns using AI deepfakes have been raised by organizations like the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. In China, authorities have increased scrutiny of the Web3 sector, citing cases of fraud involving deepfake AI.
