New Delhi: Terming the menace of deepfakes and misinformation as “a very problematic issue” for the Indian democracy, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar has said the government will “keep an eye” on the remedial measures taken by the platforms on the advisories.
The minister also promised that inaction on their part may prompt amendment to the IT Rules that will be more “prescriptive”.
In an interview with PTI, Chandrasekhar, who is Minister of State for IT and Electronics, counted the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) legislation, setting up of grievances appellate panels and tighter accountability enforced on digital platforms for user safety as being among the big achievements for 2023.
Chandrasekhar, however, said that the Digital India Act (that will supersede the 22-year-old Information Technology Act) despite undergoing extensive pre-consultations “ran out of time” and termed it “an unfinished agenda”.
‘...The Digital India Act which we put a lot of effort into...spent almost a year on pre-consultations...we ran out of time...these things happen, but certainly, it’s an unfinished, incomplete agenda. But the principles of the DIA, the fact that we have advocated this new framework, and the fact that people are all beginning to understand some of the principles that we laid out during these consultations, is certainly gratifying,’ the minister said, adding that this is something next the government will take up.
India is headed for Lok Sabha elections early next year, and the Digital India Act is expected to be legislated only after the 2024 polls and the formation of the
government.
On the issue of deepfakes, Chandrasekhar said that for a large, connected nation like India, which is the world’s largest democracy, deepfake represents “certainly a very, very problematic issue to the conducting of safe and free and fair elections”.