A deep threat to election integrity

Deepfakes pose a daunting challenge for India and, if not tackled, they could undermine the 2024 elections

I ndia, the world's largest democracy, is gearing up for the upcoming general elections. Over the past 75 years, the Indian election machinery has built a formidable reputation, consistently electing governments at the state and central levels. Despite evolving challenges, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has demonstrated resilience through innovative measures such as election picture identify cards, electronic voting machines, voter verifiable paper audit trail, and the creation of the institution of election observers and expenditure observers. It has also leveraged social media for voter awareness.

The 2024 general elections present the ECI with another daunting challenge - the pervasive threat of deepfakes. This challenge holds profound implications as it undermines the foundational basis of decision-making, erasing the line between fact and fiction. The emergence of generative adversarial networks (GAN), a variant of generative AI, facilitates the rapid generation of deepfakes in real-time contexts, seamlessly embedding them into reality to deceive even a discerning viewer. The accessibility of GAN as a user-friendly Softwareas-a-Service, available online for a few dollars, further compounds the issue. The looming danger is the potential inundation of deepfake content overshadowing factual information in practically every constituency, crafted by multiple creators.

Deepfake videos featuring leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden underscore the severity of the problem.