New Delhi: Concerned over rise in fake narratives, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Monday said that the disturbing trend of deep fake narratives have become a common feature in elections worldwide, where disruptive elements attempt to alter public perception and mislead the user by repetitively presenting the deep fakes as “fact.”
Kumar stressed that social media intermediaries through their algorithm power and AI, have the capability to detect the deep fakes proactively, especially in jurisdictions like India, where electoral cycles are definite and well announced.
While addressing an international conference on the ‘Use of Technology and Elections Integrity’, Kumar further raised concerns over level playing field not inbuilt in platforms search results to at least show officially verified versions with the same prominence as fake content. Kumar further said that it is difficult to imagine if the enforcement agencies say that they would not act unless crime is reported to them; intelligence prevention is not their responsibility. In his keynote address, the CEC emphasised that engagement of technology has become vital in ensuring inclusivity and transparency in elections and thus in further building up trust towards the democratic electoral exercise.
“The success of any EMB depends on deploying appropriate technology in three broad verticals - ease of registration for voters, facilitating political parties as well as candidates and thirdly for election management and logistics/security,” he said.
Kumar highlighted various tech interventions by ECI like cVigil, Saksham App for PwDs and use of battery-operated non-networked EVMs in a million plus polling stations which has empowered voters and has ensured prompt and credible electoral outcomes election after election.
The two-day conference is the second in a series of three conferences to be organised by the Election Commission. It is being hosted under the Cohort on Election Integrity led by the commission. Sixteen countries are participating in the conference.