As generative AI becomes mainstream, the line between authentic and synthetic content is blurring. The risk isn’t just misinformation; it’s the impersonation of real people, the misuse of celebrity personas, and the unauthorised replication of intellectual property.
India’s response is taking shape. The draft amendments by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 outline how synthetically generated information (or Deepfakes) should be handled.
Why These Amendments Are Being Proposed
As generative AI becomes mainstream, the line between authentic and synthetic content is blurring. The risk is not only misinformation. It is the impersonation of real people, the misuse of celebrity personas, and the unauthorised replication of intellectual property. Indian courts have, over the past two years, increasingly grappled with cases where deepfakes and synthetically generated content have been used to impersonate individuals, facilitate fraud, damage reputations, and manipulate public discourse.
MeitY has previously issued multiple advisories to social media platforms on deepfake content, urging compliance with existing due diligence obligations under the IT Rules. The draft amendments represent a move from advisory to statutory: they would embed specific obligations for synthetic content labelling, traceability, and verification directly into the Rules.
This draft does not just regulate digital ethics. It reshapes the interface between AI and intellectual property, extending into the domain of personality rights, trademarks, and copyright, and demanding that creators, platforms, and brands align their compliance and enforcement strategies accordingly.
What the Draft Brings: Five Key Provisions
The draft amendments introduce five substantive changes to the IT Rules framework. Each is described below with its practical significance.
- A definition of “synthetically generated information” covering content created or modified using computer resources.
- Mandatory labelling and metadata embedding, ensuring such content can be identified and traced.
- A 10% minimum visual or initial-audio marking, making the synthetic nature visible to users.
- SSMI verification duties to confirm user declarations and label AI-generated content platform-side.
- Verification obligations for significant social media intermediaries to confirm user declarations and label AI-generated content.
Who Is Affected
The draft amendments are addressed to intermediaries and platforms, but their practical effect extends across the content ecosystem.
1. AI tool and generative content platforms
Any platform offering tools that enable users to create or modify audio, visual, or audio-visual content using AI, including face-swap tools, voice cloning services, image generators, and video synthesis platforms, will be required to ensure their outputs are permanently labelled and traceable. The labelling and metadata obligations are not optional; they are conditions for maintaining safe harbour protection.
2. Significant social media intermediaries
Platforms with five million or more registered users face the additional burden of user declaration requirements and verification obligations for synthetic content uploaded by their users. This places a substantial operational compliance requirement on major social media platforms operating in India.
3. Brand owners, celebrities, and rights holders
The draft strengthens the enforcement environment for personality rights, trademark infringement, and copyright violations involving synthetic content. Where deepfakes or AI-generated content impersonates a real person or reproduces protected material, the labelling and traceability requirements give rights holders a clearer trail for enforcement action. The draft expressly acknowledges the risks of impersonation and reputational harm as drivers of the regulation.
4. Content creators and publishers
Creators using AI tools for legitimate creative or commercial purposes, including advertising, entertainment, and editorial content, will need to ensure that their outputs are appropriately labelled where they fall within the definition of SGI. The exclusion for routine or good-faith editing and accessibility use provides some headroom, but the boundary between creative AI use and regulated SGI will require careful assessment.
5. The IP Dimension: Beyond Digital Ethics
The most significant aspect of the draft for IP practitioners and brand owners is that it creates a regulatory framework that intersects directly with three distinct areas of IP law.
6. Personality rights
Indian courts have developed an active line of jurisprudence on personality rights in the context of AI-generated content. Cases involving the unauthorised replication of celebrity voices, faces, and personas in deepfakes have produced interim injunctions and shaped the emerging doctrine. The draft amendments provide a statutory backdrop for those rights by requiring that synthetic impersonations be labelled and, where unlawful, taken down within three hours. The traceability mechanism, embedded metadata and unique identifiers, provides rights holders with evidentiary tools for enforcement.
7. Trademark infringement
Where synthetic content uses a registered brand’s identity, logo, or distinctive elements, the mandatory labelling and metadata requirements create a clearer evidentiary record for trademark infringement claims. The extension of existing due diligence obligations to SGI means platforms cannot disclaim knowledge of synthetic trademark use if the content was created using their tools.
8. Copyright
AI-generated content that reproduces protected works, including artistic styles, musical compositions, or audiovisual material, raises copyright questions that the draft does not directly resolve but significantly reframes. By requiring labelling and traceability of all AI-generated content, the framework makes it easier to establish the chain of creation and identify where infringing material originated.
What Stakeholders Should Consider
The feedback deadline of 6 November 2025 is the immediate action point. Beyond the comment window, the following preparatory steps are relevant for businesses and rights holders in the affected categories.
1. Platform and AI tool operators:
Assess whether your product falls within the definition of a computer resource that enables creation or modification of SGI. If it does, begin mapping the technical feasibility of the mandatory labelling and metadata embedding requirements.
2. SSMIs:
Review your current user declaration processes and content moderation workflows against the draft’s verification requirements. The three-hour takedown window for unlawful synthetic content is a significant operational change from the current 36-hour standard.
3. Brand owners and rights holders:
Assess how the labelling and traceability requirements change your enforcement toolkit for personality rights, trademark, and copyright matters involving synthetic content. The draft’s inclusion of SGI within the due diligence framework provides a clearer basis for notice-and-takedown actions.
4. Legal and compliance teams:
The definition of SGI, while technology-neutral, is broad. Consider the range of AI-assisted content your organisation produces or distributes and identify where the boundary between routine editing and regulated SGI falls for your use cases.
Submit structured feedback
If the draft raises concerns about definitional breadth, technical feasibility, or the balance between creative freedom and compliance, the consultation process is the appropriate channel. Send comments to itrules.consultation@meity.gov.in before 6 November 2025.
Conclusion
MeitY’s draft amendments represent India’s first explicit statutory framework for addressing the harms posed by synthetically generated content. The regulatory architecture, built on labelling, traceability, verification, and extended due diligence obligations, is designed to create accountability across the AI content supply chain.
For IP practitioners and brand owners, the significance of the draft extends well beyond digital ethics compliance. It creates a structured enforcement environment for personality rights, trademark, and copyright claims involving AI-generated content, with specific provisions on traceability that change the evidentiary landscape for rights enforcement. The consultation window is short. Engagement with the process now, while the draft is open for feedback, is more effective than compliance assessment after the rules are notified.
Governing Law
Information Technology Act, 2000: Section 79 | IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021: Rule 3, Rule 4 | Draft IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2025 (22 October 2025)
