'India Will Have Deepfake Regulations Very Soon': Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw At NDTV Summit

India will "very soon" bring out regulations to counter deepfakes in the AI age, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced at the NDTV World Summit in Delhi today. The regulations will have two components instead of just a law on paper, he said.

"The world of AI cannot be regulated simply by passing a law. There has to be a technical solution to it," Vaishnaw said on Day 2 of the summit.

The Union IT Minister agreed that AI allows people to do fun things - make a young person look old or vice versa, for example - and there's a sense of humour in all this.

However, deepfakes can harm society in ways humans have never seen before, he added.

"There was a nice video a few months back where political leaders were presented as young children. It was quite funny. That's a very interesting element of AI and it should be encouraged. There's no harm in it," Vaishnaw said.

"What's important is that we save society from significant harms which can be caused by using deepfakes where your voice, your face can be presented to give out a message which is absolutely disconnected with you," he said.

"So it's your right to make sure that your face and your voice should not be used in a harmful way for society. That's the thought process by which we are approaching this topic, and we would very soon bring out regulations on deepfakes," the Union Minister added.

India is approaching this particular regulation in two ways - technical and legal.

He explained how people are working on some very complex problems at the AI safety Institute, and gave an example of how the Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur has come up with a solution that can detect any deepfake with over 90 per cent accuracy.

"So, a technical solution plus a regulation combined with it, is going to be more effective than let's say the European Union where they simply focus on regulating things. Our bias is more towards innovation as a country and as a government we are focused more on innovation. Simultaneously, we have to protect society from potential harms, and that's why we took the techno-legal approach to this," Vaishnaw said.

About NDTV World Summit 2025

NDTV World Summit 2025 is centred around the theme 'Edge of the Unknown: Risk. Resolve. Renewal.' The two-day gathering is an invitation to venture beyond boundaries and borders - to explore the unfamiliar in pursuit of a more conscious, collective future.

The 2025 edition of the NDTV World Summit brings together an extraordinary gathering of minds - heads of state, cultural icons, business architects, innovators, and voices of moral imagination to engage in a new kind of dialogue. One rooted in courageous questioning, in thoughtful exploration of what it means to navigate complexity with clarity and conscience.