Binding law — in force
Since 2026-02-20, a significant social media intermediary (a social media intermediary with more than fifty lakh, that is five million, registered users in India) that enables displaying, uploading or publishing information must, before display, upload or publication, require users to declare whether the information is synthetically generated, deploy appropriate technical measures, including automated tools, to verify the accuracy of the declaration having regard to the nature, format and source of the information, and, where the declaration or verification confirms it is synthetic, ensure it is clearly and prominently displayed with an appropriate label or notice (rule 4(1A) of the IT Rules, 2021, inserted by G.S.R. 120(E)). An intermediary that knowingly permits, promotes or fails to act on synthetic content in contravention is deemed to have failed its due diligence, and its responsibility extends to reasonable and proportionate technical measures to verify user declarations and to ensure no synthetic content is published without a declaration or label (proviso and Explanation). Detect an upload or publish handler with no synthetic-content declaration, verification or label step.
in-it-rules-sgi.ssmi-synthetic-declaration-verification-label · IT Rules, 2021, rule 4(1A) (significant social media intermediaries: user declaration, technical verification and label before publication), inserted by G.S.R. 120(E) · official source · jurisdictions: IN
The guard to add, and how far to trust this rule
Binding law — in force
Since 2026-02-20, an intermediary that offers a computer resource which may enable, permit or facilitate the creation, generation, modification or alteration of synthetically generated information must ensure that every such information that is not unlawful (rule 3(3)(a)(i)) is prominently labelled so that the label is easily noticeable and adequately perceivable in the visual display, or, for audio, through a prominently prefixed audio disclosure, so that it can be immediately identified as synthetically generated; and that it is embedded with permanent metadata or other appropriate technical provenance mechanisms, to the extent technically feasible, including a unique identifier that identifies the intermediary's computer resource used to create, generate, modify or alter it (rule 3(3)(a)(ii) of the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, inserted by G.S.R. 120(E)). The intermediary must not enable the modification, suppression or removal of the label or the permanent metadata, including the unique identifier (rule 3(3)(b)). Synthetically generated information is audio, visual or audio-visual information artificially or algorithmically created, generated, modified or altered so that it appears real and depicts an individual or event as indistinguishable from a natural person or real-world event, excluding routine good-faith editing, document or presentation preparation, and accessibility or translation uses (rule 2(1)(wa)). Detect generated media with no visible label, no provenance metadata, or code that strips the label or metadata.
in-it-rules-sgi.synthetic-content-label-and-provenance · IT Rules, 2021, rule 3(3)(a)(ii) (prominent label or prefixed audio disclosure; permanent metadata and unique identifier), inserted by G.S.R. 120(E) · official source · jurisdictions: IN
The guard to add, and how far to trust this rule
Binding law — in force
Since 2026-02-20, an intermediary that offers a computer resource which may enable, permit or facilitate the creation, generation, modification or alteration of synthetically generated information must deploy reasonable and appropriate technical measures, including automated tools or other suitable mechanisms, so that no user can create, generate, modify, alter, publish, transmit, share or disseminate synthetically generated information that violates any law in force, including content that contains child sexual exploitative and abuse material or non-consensual intimate imagery, or is obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, invasive of privacy including bodily privacy, vulgar, indecent or sexually explicit; that creates a false document or false electronic record; that relates to preparing, developing or procuring explosives, arms or ammunition; or that falsely depicts a natural person or real-world event by misrepresenting, in a way likely to deceive, the person's identity, voice, conduct, action or statement, or the event as having occurred (rule 3(3)(a)(i) of the IT Rules, 2021, inserted by G.S.R. 120(E)). This is a prevention duty at generation time, separate from the removal duties the Rules also set (not encoded). Detect a generation path with no input or output safety filter, or with the model's own safety checker switched off.
in-it-rules-sgi.unlawful-synthetic-content-blocked · IT Rules, 2021, rule 3(3)(a)(i) (due diligence in relation to synthetically generated information: no unlawful synthetic content), inserted by G.S.R. 120(E) · official source · jurisdictions: IN
The guard to add, and how far to trust this rule
