Journalist Rajat Sharma files PIL in Delhi High Court seeking to block deepfake apps and platforms

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice to the central government in a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) to identify and block access to platforms and mobile applications that enable the creation of deepfakes. (Rajat Sharma v Union of India).

The plea of ​​the veteran journalist and chairman and editor-in-chief of Hindi news channel India TV was heard by a division bench of acting chief justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora ordering the government to submit its response within four weeks.

The Court said the case will be heard on July 19.

While hearing the matter, the Bench observed that the Central government should consider the issue and act on it, which it has not done so far.

Acting Chief Justice Manmohan further noted that even political parties are now complaining about the misuse of such deepfakes during elections.

“This is a big problem. We have been telling you (national government) for months. The government will have to think about this… Are you prepared to take action? Are you going to act? Political parties also complain about this. You don’t take action’ the Bank noted.

In the PIL, Sharma said he became aware of the dangers of deepfakes when he came to know of a fake video circulating on social media, using his face and voice, advocating diabetes and weight loss treatment.

He said he tried to get the fake videos removed but found that there was no special mechanism to identify and remove such videos and though he had filed a complaint with the cyber cell of Noida police, no culprit has been apprehended.

Apart from blocking platforms that facilitate the creation of deepfakes, Sharma has prayed that the central government should appoint a dedicated nodal officer to receive complaints about deepfakes and respond to a complaint within twelve hours, and within six hours in the case of a complaint about the content. with a public figure.

Sharma has also asked for a directive to the central government to ensure that apps and platforms that enable the creation of deepfakes reveal that the content has been generated by artificial intelligence (AI), either through a watermark or a other effective methodology.

Social media companies have also been asked to remove the deepfakes if they receive a complaint from the person involved.

The PIL further prays that guidelines be issued to ensure that any access to AI and deepfake is done in strict accordance with the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution, until the rules/guidelines are framed by the government.

It was argued that the misuse of deepfake and AI technologies poses a serious threat to the integrity of public discourse and democratic processes and has the potential to damage the reputation, privacy and security of individuals.

The senior journalist said such abuse also has the potential to undermine people’s trust in the media and public institutions and also violates intellectual property rights.

It was alleged that there is currently no dedicated mechanism in India to deal with deepfakes and that the power conferred on the government under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act (IT Act) has not been exercised to deal with applications that enable the creation of deepfakes.

“India’s data protection law, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, does not protect publicly available data. According to Article 3(c)(ii) of the Act, it does not apply to personal data that users have intentionally made publicly available. For example, if a blogger shares personal information on social media, this data processing falls outside the jurisdiction of data protection law.” was the plea.