Legal Protection against Non-Consensual Deepfake Content in India

This dissertation focuses on the newly emerged phenomenon of deepfakes and its intricate legal aspects, analyzing it mostly through the Indian legal system and a comparative perspective of how the legal systems of different countries operate. Deepfakes are generated with the help of the latest artificial intelligence methods, including Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), and allow producing highly realistic and fake audio-visual content, which is associated with grave concerns regarding privacy, reputational concerns, misinformation, and democratic integrity. The paper starts by discussing the conceptual and technological background of deepfakes, their development and the different types and uses of them in entertainment, politics, and cybercrime. It also harshly evaluates the dangers of deepfakes, such as identity theft, defamation, non-consensual explicit content, and mass-disinformation campaigns. The study also assesses the moral issues and social implications of the abuse of such technology. The dissertation dedicates a considerable portion to the analysis of the sufficiency of the current Indian legislation such as the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, to deal with harms caused by deepfakes. It further takes into account intermediary liability in the context of the Information Technology Rules, 2021, and examines the judicial cases that influence the discussion of the privacy and free speech in the digital era. The paper singles out regulatory issues including lack of specific legislation on deepfakes, technological constraints in the detection process, jurisdictional issues, and the conflict between freedom of speech and regulation. In order to give a broader picture, a comparative review of the legal systems in other countries like the United States, European Union and the United Kingdom is also conducted with a focus on best practice and trends in regulation. The dissertation ends by suggesting legal and policy recommendations such as the necessity of specialized legal framework, greater platform responsibility, enhancing technological detection systems, and global collaboration. It stresses the need to adopt a balanced strategy that does not only protect basic rights but also effectively deals with the menace of deepfake technology in an ever-digitalized society.