Deepfake Crimes Against Women In India: Towards A Victim-Centric Framework Of Criminal Liability, Digital Dignity And Platform Accountability
- IJLLR Journal
- 3 hours ago
- 2 min read
Dr. Cumaran Nadaradjan, B.A. LL.B., LL.M., Ph.D. (Law) Advocate, Bar Council of Delhi
ABSTRACT
Generative artificial intelligence has transformed the architecture of technology-facilitated abuse against women. A perpetrator no longer requires possession of an authentic intimate photograph or recording to manufacture sexual humiliation, reputational injury or coercive control. Publicly available photographs, fragments of video and samples of speech can be converted into realistic synthetic images, audio and video that falsely depict an identifiable woman in intimate, sexual or otherwise compromising circumstances. The resulting injury is not adequately understood as misinformation alone. It implicates privacy, dignity, sexual autonomy, reputation and an individual’s ability to exercise meaningful control over the digital representation of her identity.
Indian law now contains a significant but dispersed body of rules capable of addressing different stages of deepfake abuse. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, constitutional privacy jurisprudence, data-protection law and intermediary regulation may each become relevant according to the conduct involved. The 2026 amendments to India’s intermediary rules mark an especially important regulatory development by expressly addressing synthetically generated information and strengthening obligations concerning unlawful synthetic content, transparency, provenance and intermediary due diligence. Yet recognition of synthetic media as a regulatory category does not itself create a coherent remedial architecture for victims.
This Article argues that the central weakness of the existing framework is remedial fragmentation. The law separates criminal liability, platform responsibility, evidence, privacy and regulatory compliance, while the victim experiences creation, publication, amplification, repeated circulation, evidentiary loss and reputational injury as one continuing episode of abuse. To address that disconnect, the Article develops “synthetic dignity harm” as an analytical concept describing serious injury caused by the non-consensual appropriation of an identifiable person’s identity to manufacture a harmful synthetic representation. It further proposes a Victim-Centric Deepfake Response Framework (VCDRF) organised around five interconnected duties: prevention, expedited containment, evidentiary preservation, victim protection and accountable redress.
The Article additionally proposes recognition of Non-Consensual Synthetic Intimate Content (NCSIC) as a distinct regulatory category; develops differentiated responsibility for creators, commissioners, initial publishers, knowing redistributors, platforms and deliberately facilitating technological services; and identifies the authenticity paradox, persistence gap and removal-preservation paradox as structural problems that conventional digital-remedy mechanisms do not adequately resolve. It concludes that the next stage of Indian deepfake regulation should move beyond asking whether particular content is authentic or artificial. The deeper legal question is whether an individual possesses meaningful protection against another person’s non-consensual technological manufacture and exploitation of her identity.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Deepfakes; Women; Synthetic Media; Digital Dignity; Privacy; Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita; Non-Consensual Synthetic Intimate Content; Platform Accountability; Synthetically Generated Information; Intermediary Liability.
