ECI’s bid to guard democracy in age of AI: Disclaimers now mandatory for content during elections; what we know

GUWAHATI: Political parties must issue disclaimers on AI-generated videos and pictures they use on social media during elections, top officials said here on Monday. Special monitoring cells have also been set up to track fake AI-generated content online.

Chief electoral officer (CEO) Anurag Goel said the Election Commission of India (ECI) has recently issued guidelines, where they said that political parties will have to give disclaimers in AI-generated contents. “The instructions have been shared with the political parties,” he added.

Inspector general of police (law & order) Akhilesh Singh, the nodal security officer for polls, said, “We are living in the age of social media. There are many instances at other places when fake AI generated video contents and all those things are circulated on social media. So, we have created a special cell to monitor that and complaints can be lodged to the appropriate level.” He added that there is a state-level cell also in the CID, which will monitor overall.

Singh said legal actions under the provisions of various laws will be initiated against those found involved in generating and circulating fake AI-generated videos.

Regarding the pre-certification of political advertisement, the CEO said since social media by definition falls in the category of electronic media , all political ads on social media are also be to be pre-certified besides the bulk SMSs/voice messages , ads in cinema halls, private FM/Radio, e-papers are to be pre-certified.

While talking about the legal actions, Goel said that Section 125 Representation of People Act 1951 states that promoting enmity between different classes in connection with election, punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.

It’s poll time. So don’t let AI fool you anymore:

• Check facial details like faces blur near ears, hair edges, or teeth that look unnatural
• You can also reverse image search by using tools such as Google Images to trace origin of the picture or video
• For videos, lip-sync mismatch is still very prominent in AI-generated conten