Rashmika Mandanna & Katrina Kaif deepfake row: What could be the repurcussions of this cyber crime?

Two prominent actresses from the entertainment industry, Rashmika Mandanna & Katrina Kaif recently became the victims of deepfakes, which created outrage on social media. While the face of the Animal actress was morphed with an influencer named Zara Patel, Katrina’s image from the Tiger 3 towel fight sequence surfaced online, which was fabricated through AI.

Deep fake video of Rashmika Mandanna...
Deepfake technology, which can convincingly manipulate and generate fake audio and video content, poses a significant threat to the spread of misinformation and the erosion of trust in digital media.plz take a strict action who crete this… pic.twitter.com/z6qsDh30Ta

— Animesh Singh (@Sin96967Singh) November 6, 2023

Amid these incidents, the Indian government has issued a stern reminder to social media platforms regarding the punishment and penalties of this digital crime. As per the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, section 66D of the Information Technology Act, 2000, which pertains to ‘punishment for cheating by personation by using a computer resource’ states, “Whoever, by means for any communication device or computer resource cheats by personating, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine which may extend to one lakh rupees.” Ms Mandanna shared a statement regarding the episode and said it is “extremely scary”. ‘‘I feel really hurt to share this and have to talk about the deepfake video of me being spread online. Something like this is honestly, extremely scary not only for me, but also for each one of us who today is vulnerable to so much harm because of how technology is being misused,’’ she said. “Under the IT rules notified in April, 2023 - it is a legal obligation for platforms to ensure no misinformation is posted by any user, ensure that when reported by any user or govt, misinformation is removed in 36 hrs. If platforms do not comply wth this, rule 7 will apply and platforms can be taken to court by aggrieved person under provisions of IPC. Deep fakes are latest and even more dangerous and damaging form of misinformation and needs to be dealt with by platforms,” Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology tweeted yesterday with the hashtags “SafeTrustedInternet”,