Parliament Question: Misuse of AI

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 533 TO BE ANSWERED ON: 23.07.2025 MISUSE OF AI 533. SHRI KODIKUNNIL SURESH: Will the Minister of ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY be pleased to state: (a) whether the Government has identified key risks associated with AI misuse—such as deepfakes, algorithmic bias, automated surveillance, or cyber fraud—and outline the legal framework in place to address them and if so, the details thereof; (b) whether the Government has proposed or enacted any specific legislations, amendments or regulations to penalize AI-related offenses including misuse by both private entities and foreign actors and if so, the details thereof; (c) whether any agencies (such as CERT-In, UIDAI, or cybercrime units) have been empowered or trained to detect and respond to AI-backed threats and if so, the details thereof; (d) whether any prosecutions, penalties or legal actions have been initiated in the country to date for AI-related wrongdoing and if so, the details thereof; and (e) the timeline for finalization and implementation of any comprehensive AI governance or ethics framework? ANSWER MINISTER OF STATE FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI JITIN PRASADA) (a) to (e): India’s AI strategy is based on the Hon’ble Prime Minister's vision to democratize the use of technology. It aims to address India centric challenges, create economic and employment opportunities for all Indians. AI ecosystem in India at present: India has a strong information technology ecosystem. It generates annual revenues of more than 250 billion dollars and provides employment to more than 6 million people. Global rankings such as Stanford AI rankings place India among the top countries in AI skills, capabilities, and policies to use AI. India is also the second-largest contributor to GitHub AI projects, showcasing its vibrant developer community. India’s AI strategy: India’s AI strategy aims to position India as a global leader in artificial intelligence. Government launched IndiaAI mission in March 2024. It is a strategic initiative to establish a robust and inclusive AI ecosystem aligned with India's development goals. Safe & Trusted AI • To balance innovation with strong governance frameworks to ensure responsible AI adoption.• In the first round, 8 projects have been selected addressing issues like machine unlearning, bias mitigation, privacy-preserving machine learning, explainability, auditing tools, and governance testing framework. • More than 400 applications have been received in the second round. • An expression of interest was published on 09th May 2025 for onboarding partner institutions for setting up the IndiaAI Safety Institute. Legal provisions under IT Act, 2000: • Sections 66C (Punishment for identity theft) deals with misinformation, deepfakes, cheating by personation or identity theft. • Section 66D of the IT Act criminalizes the use of computer resources for cheating by personation. • Section 66E prescribes the punishment for capturing and publishing or transmitting the image of a private area of any person without his or her consent. • Section 67A and 67B make publishing or transmitting obscene material for instance, which could be generated by using deepfake technology a punishable offence. Legal provisions under BharatiyaNyay Sanhita, 2023: • Section 111 of the BNS punishes the commission of any continuing unlawful activity including economic offence, cyber-crimes, by any person or a group of persons, either as a member of an organised crime syndicate or on behalf of such syndicate. • Several other sections under the BNS also deal with cyber-crimes like cheating or cheating by personation such as sections 318 (Cheating), 319 (cheating by personation), 353 (public mischief), 356 (defamation). Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 • It casts obligations on Data Fiduciaries to safeguard digital personal data, holding them accountable, while also ensuring the rights and duties of Data Principals. Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (“IT Rules, 2021”) • Central Government after extensive public consultations with relevant stakeholders has notified the IT Rules, 2021. • The IT Rules cast specific legal obligations on intermediaries, including social media intermediaries and platforms expeditiously remove the prohibited misinformation, patently false information and deepfakes. • In case of failure of the intermediaries to observe the legal obligations, they are liable for consequential action or prosecution as provided under the extant laws. • Under the IT Rules 2021, there is a provisions grievance redressal mechanism by the intermediaries which inter-alia provides 24 hours of timelines for any grievances relating to morphed or artificially generated images affecting the victim. If not satisfied with the grievance redressal, aggrieved persons can approach Grievance Appellate Committee. • Ministry of Home Affairs has launched a dedicated portal to report cybercrimes [cybercrime.gov.in] and has also started a toll-free number 1930. Additional measures to counter deepfakes:• Government of India issues advisories from time to time to intermediaries/platforms for ensuring compliance on using Artificial Intelligence foundational model(s) /Large Language Model (LLM)/Generative AI (Artificial Intelligence), software(s) or algorithm(s). • Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is also actively addressing the key risks associated with AI misuse including deepfakes, algorithmic bias, cyber fraud, and misuse of automated authentication systems. • The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) issues alerts and advisories regarding latest cyber threats/vulnerabilities including malicious attacks using Artificial Intelligence and countermeasures to protect computers, networks and data on an ongoing basis. Government has constituted an Advisory Group on AI for India-specific regulatory AI framework under the chairmanship of Principal Scientific Advisor (PSA) to Prime Minister. It has members from diverse stakeholders from academia, industry and government. *******