From Deepfakes To Digital Deception: Rethinking Criminal Liability, Evidentiary Reliability And The Regulation Of AI- Generated Synthetic Media In India
Dr. Dhananjay Madheshia, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gorakhpur University Gorakhpur / Buddha Law College
Diwakar Prasad Dwivedi, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gorakhpur University Gorakhpur / Buddha Law College
ABSTRACT
The rapid development of generative artificial intelligence has transformed the production and dissemination of digital content. Deepfakes and other forms of AI-generated synthetic media can convincingly manipulate images, videos, voices and textual communications, thereby creating serious challenges for criminal law, evidence and regulatory governance. In India, the legal response to synthetic media remains distributed across the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023. The problem is not merely that synthetic media may facilitate traditional offences such as cheating, impersonation, forgery, obscenity, defamation and identity theft; it also threatens the reliability of digital evidence itself. The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam expressly recognises electronic and digital records, but the increasing sophistication of synthetic media requires courts to adopt stronger approaches to authentication, provenance, metadata, expert examination and chain of custody. This paper examines the adequacy of India's existing framework and argues for a technology-neutral but rights-sensitive regulatory model based on provenance, mandatory disclosure, platform accountability, specialised forensic capacity and calibrated criminal liability. It concludes that regulation should distinguish between lawful synthetic expression and malicious digital deception rather than treating AI-generated content as inherently unlawful.
Keywords: Deepfakes, Artificial Intelligence, Synthetic Media, Criminal Liability, Digital Evidence, Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, Information Technology Act, Cybercrime, Intermediary Liability.
