Regulating deepfakes isn’t a simple black and white issue but requires deliberation not only on the legal aspects but technological advancement .
The ultimate, a symbol of technological advancement and invention, also poses a trouble to society as we know it. Sexual importunity, irruption of sequestration, security pitfalls, child botheration and propagation of misinformation are just some of the problems associated with deepfakes.
The Merriam- Webster wordbook defines deepfake as an image or recording that has been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying commodity that wasn’t done or said.
lately, the Delhi high court while hearing an appeal against a conservation order refused to calculate on a snap in the absence of any substantiation being led to establish its authenticity. The high court explained “ We may take judicial notice of the fact that we’re living in the period of deepfakes and, thus, this is an aspect that the complainant/ hubby, maybe, would have to prove by way of substantiation before the Family Court. ”
In September 2023 the Delhi High court shielded the persona of the film actor Anil Kapoor after the latterly sought protection of persona rights against abuse online. The court stressed colorful cases in which the actor’s face, voice, face etc had been used in countersign and said, ‘ Under these circumstances, this Court has no mistrustfulness in holding that the Plaintiff’s name, likeness, image, persona, etc.
Deserves to be defended not only for the benefit of the complainant but also the family and musketeers of the former that would not like to see his/ her image, name, other rudiments being abused, particularly ’ .
The Delhi high court entertained another similar solicitation in December 2023 in which the petitioner had expressed anguish over limited use of deep fakes in the country and supplicated for a direction to the central government to come out with rules for containing deep fakes. Counsel for the Centre refocused to the fact that the regulation of technology was a sensitive task and couldn’t be approached with any degree of naturalness. For practical purposes, the date of the solicitation is set for July 9th.
The central government filed another announcement in April 2023 as an correction to the Information Technology( Central Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which included Rule 3( i)( II)( A) and Rule 3( i)( II)( C). The changes aimed for increased alert from social media companies while the government through the ‘ fact check unit ’ came the ultimate decider of fake or deceiving information.
Comedian Kunal Kamra and other Twitter druggies filed a solicitation in the Bombay high court arguing that the correction is unconstitutional. The overarching explanation of the first argument was that the correction sought to suppress dissent in the guise of combating ‘ false ’ content. Another split verdict was delivered on the 31st of January, 2024 by the Bombay high court.
One justice of the bench JusticeG.S. Patel declared the provision as unconstitutional while the other justice of the bench Justice Neela Gokhale qualified it to beingun-constitutional if certain conditions aren’t observed. Especially, the Correction of 2023 was suspended while the case was pending but after the judicial dogfight, the case was appertained to a third Judge.
Kamra and others sought to stay the correction to the effect since they sought a indigenous determination on the same. still, the high court declined to quash the concerned provision, which made Kamra knock on the doors of the Supreme Court. On the other hand, the Centre ordered the fact check unit for removing the fake or deceiving content on the internet on the 20 of March 2024.
The Supreme court that took up the case on21-03-2018 has passed an interim order staying the operation of both the amended rule and the announcement dated20-03-2018 till disposal of the matter.
