What happened
The Government announced amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 to tackle harms from synthetically generated information, including deepfakes and AI-generated content. The amendments target unlawful AI-generated content, including obscene content, misleading content, impersonation, and content harmful to children, and require reporting of related offences to appropriate authorities under existing reporting-mandating laws. The Government also launched the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP) under I4C for public cybercrime reporting, including anonymous reporting for women and child related crimes. Separately, the Government released Rs. 132.93 crore under the CCPWC Scheme for capacity building and training across States and Union Territories, and it described related cyber hygiene education efforts.
Background and earlier position
The Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act) and the IT Rules, 2021 form the core framework for dealing with unlawful and harmful content and for imposing obligations on intermediaries such as social media intermediaries. Under the IT Rules, 2021, intermediaries are expected to make reasonable efforts (due diligence) so that users do not host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update, or share information that is obscene, pornographic, pedophilic, harmful to a child, invasive of privacy, insulting or harassing on the basis of gender, or that violates any law. If intermediaries do not follow these obligations, they lose exemption from third-party information under section 79 of the IT Act.
What changed now
On 10 February 2026, the Government strengthened the regulatory framework by amending the IT Rules to address harms from synthetically generated information (SGI), including deepfakes and AI-generated content. The amendments require intermediaries and large social media platforms to deploy reasonable technical measures to prevent creation and dissemination of unlawful AI-generated content, and they also require reporting of related offences to appropriate authorities under reporting-mandating laws. The Government also expanded institutional response by launching NCRP under I4C, adding modules for anonymous women/child related reporting and for reporting suspicious content and identifiers, including deepfakes and social media URLs. The Government further expanded capacity by releasing Rs. 132.93 crore under CCPWC, describing commissioning of cyber forensic-cum-training laboratories in 33 States/UTs and training of 24,600+ law enforcement and judicial stakeholders.