Information and Broadcasting and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has said that synthetic content generated using artificial intelligence must not be created without the consent of the individual whose likeness is being used.
Speaking at the Conclave on February 26, Vaishnaw has stated, “Synthetic content should not be generated without the consent of the person whose face or voice or personality has been used to create the content. Time has come to make that big inflectional change.”
He has emphasised that trust, a principle binding institutions such as the media, legislature and judiciary, has been under challenge in recent times. “The core tenet of trust is under threat. It is coming in different forms — deepfakes, things which have never happened anywhere; disinformation.. creating synthetically generated pictures of well respected people, creating videos which have no correlation to AI; and all that content, so-called content/news, when it reaches common people — they start questioning the basic structure of the society,” he has said.
The minister has reiterated that platforms must take responsibility for content such as deepfakes and disinformation hosted on their platforms. Stressing accountability, he has added, “Platforms must wake up, must understand the importance of reinforcing trust in the institutions which human society has created over thousands of years. Platforms must take the responsibility for the content that is hosted by them. The online safety of children, the online safety of all citizens is the responsibility of the platforms. Non-adherence to these principles will definitely make them responsible because the nature of Internet has changed now.”
Vaishnaw has maintained that without clear consent safeguards and platform accountability, the spread of synthetic content and disinformation would continue to erode institutional trust and online safety.
