India is in the process of drawing up rules to legislate deepfakes, a government minister has confirmed.

Deepfakes – a synthetic media in which a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone else's likeness using powerful deep learning techniques – have the potential to be a major weapon for the spread of misinformation, while the technology’s use to create non-consensual pornography is increasingly being used as an abuse tactic online.

Speaking at a virtual summit of G20 nations, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi highlighted the negative impacts of deepfakes on society and called on global leaders to collaborate towards the end of regulating artificial intelligence (AI).

I​​nformation technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw subsequently told reporters that draft regulations are set to be completed “within the next few weeks” after meeting with academics, industry groups and social media companies.

Vaishnaw said that the process of drafting regulations for deepfakes will look at penalties on both the individual uploading the content and the platform to which that content is posted.

Nations around the globe are looking at ways of regulating AI.

It was reported earlier this week that France, Germany and Italy are set to publish a joint paper in which the three European nations agree on how artificial intelligence (AI) should be regulated, with the nations to support "mandatory self-regulation through codes of conduct" for foundation models of AI while opposing “un-tested norms”.

In the US, president Joe Biden last month signed an executive order requiring AI systems developers to share the results of safety tests with the government before their model’s release to the public.

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