Citing disruptions to level playing field, why Election Commission has directed parties to label AI content

“…The misuse of hyper-realistic synthetically generated information, including depicting political leaders making electorally sensitive messages, is contaminating the level- playing field in the electoral arena, disrupting fair and equal conditions for all political participants,” the ECI said.

“The use of technology for creating, generating, modifying, and altering information and publishing and transmitting synthetically generated information is a deep threat and challenge because of its ability to masquerade as the truth and unwittingly trap political stakeholders into incorrect conclusions…” it added.

What ECI has said on deepfakes earlier, what it’s directing now

Ahead of last year’s Lok Sabha polls, the ECI had, for the first time, addressed the issue of deepfakes in election campaigning, and had directed parties that whenever a deepfake comes to their notice, they shall take down the post within three hours. In January this year, the Commission had directed parties to apply labels such as “AI-Generated,” “Digitally Enhanced”, or ” Synthetic Content” to images or videos that had been digitally altered.

The Commission’s advisory on Friday takes its previous directions one step forward by specifically prescribing that the labels and watermarks on such images and videos should cover at least 10% of the visible display area, or the initial 10% duration for audio content. The label in the case of video content shall be carried as part of the top hand of the screen, the ECI said.

Another new direction is that such digitally altered videos shall prominently disclose the name of the entity responsible for their generation in the metadata or accompanying caption. Parties would also have to maintain internal records “of all AI-generated campaign materials, including creator details and timestamps, for verification when sought by the ECI,” the Commission said.

How fresh directions echo draft IT Rules

The ECI’s advisory prescribing the specific visibility and placement of AI-labels closely follows amendments to Information Technology Rules, 2021, which the IT Ministry proposed earlier this week. Although it is worth noting that the amendments are currently in a draft stage and have yet to be implemented.

As per the draft amendments, social media platforms would have to get users to declare whether the uploaded content is synthetically generated; deploy “reasonable and appropriate technical measures”, including automated tools or other suitable mechanisms, to verify the accuracy of such declaration; and, where such declaration or technical verification confirms that the content is synthetically generated, ensure that this information — that the content is synthetically generated — is clearly and prominently displayed with an appropriate label or notice.

If they fail to comply, the platforms may lose the legal immunity they enjoy from third-party content, meaning that the responsibility of such platforms shall extend to taking reasonable and proportionate technical measures to verify the correctness of user declarations and to ensure that no synthetically generated information is published without such declaration or label.

The draft amendments introduce a new clause defining synthetically generated information as “information that is artificially or algorithmically created, generated, modified, or altered using a computer resource, in a manner that appears reasonably authentic or true”.