Detecting and Regulating Deepfakes in India: A Legal and Technological Conundrum

Abstract

Deepfakes are currently limited in the arena of elections in India. However, it shall not be very long before this audio-visual miscreant, in a world fed on social media, will percolate in other domains and will consequently create havoc by primarily infringing the privacy of individuals in an unprecedented manner. Various governments, digital media companies, and social media platforms are currently devising their methods to regulate the creation and circulation of deepfake videos, but there is a lack of a uniform approach for the same. This paper emphasizes on the need for the Indian Government to address this issue and devise a regulatory framework. It also analyses whether the Indian legal framework is adept at tackling the infringement of individual rights due to deepfakes and argues that though the current laws impliedly prohibit the circulation of deepfakes, there are a few challenges in the existing framework which can be addressed through suggested legislative amendments. The paper also highlights how cryptography and advanced artificial intelligence algorithms can help detect such deepfakes to facilitate appropriate legal actions subsequently.

Keywords: Deepfake, Personal Data Protection Bill, Information Technology Act, Right to Privacy, Digital Signature, Cryptography, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, Generative Adversarial Networks

JEL Classification: K39