Shiv Sena MP Tables India’s First Dedicated Deepfake Regulation Bill in Lok Sabha
Parliament witnesses first major move to criminalise malicious deepfakes and create national task force.
On Friday, Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction) MP Dr Shrikant Shinde, representing Kalyan constituency, tabled “The Regulation of Deepfake Bill, 2025” in the Lok Sabha — a comprehensive Private Member’s Bill that seeks to establish India’s first dedicated statutory framework to govern the creation, distribution and monetisation of synthetic media powered by artificial intelligence and deep learning algorithms.
The proposed legislation introduces a groundbreaking consent clause: no individual’s face, voice or likeness can be replicated or altered in audio-visual content without their explicit, verifiable and prior written permission, with violations attracting both civil liabilities and criminal prosecution. The Bill explicitly recognises deepfakes as a distinct category of digital harm, separate from existing provisions under the Information Technology Act, thereby closing critical gaps that currently allow perpetrators to escape stringent punishment.
Penalties under the Bill are severe and graded according to intent and impact: creators and distributors acting with malicious motive — including political disinformation, non-consensual pornography, financial fraud, defamation or incitement — face imprisonment of up to seven years and fines extending to several crores, while platforms that fail to remove flagged deepfake content within stipulated timelines will be liable for heavy financial penalties and potential loss of intermediary safe-harbour protection.
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A cornerstone of the legislation is the establishment of a statutory “National Deepfake Task Force” under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, comprising experts from CERT-In, law enforcement agencies, forensic laboratories, leading academic institutions and responsible technology companies. This body will be empowered to issue real-time advisories, mandate watermarking and provenance standards for AI-generated content, conduct pre-election monitoring and develop indigenous detection tools capable of identifying even the most sophisticated manipulations.
To ensure sustained technological superiority against evolving threats, the Bill proposes the creation of a “Deepfake Detection and Deterrence Fund”, financed through cess on large digital platforms, budgetary allocations and voluntary contributions. The fund will support research grants, startup incubators and nationwide deployment of counter-deepfake infrastructure, positioning India not merely as a regulator but as a global pioneer in trustworthy artificial intelligence and resilient digital public square.
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