Election Commission of India - Action on Unlawful Social Media Content and Labelling of AI-Generated Campaign Content (General Elections and Bye-elections 2026)
AI / PRIVACY / CYBER RELEVANCE
India's election-specific rule for deepfakes and synthetic campaign material: mandatory AI labels with source disclosure and 3-hour platform action.
AI: Very HighPrivacy: ContextualCybersecurity: Moderate
READ FIRST
- Paragraph 2 - action on misleading or unlawful AI-generated content within 3 hours
- Paragraph 3 - mandatory labels "AI-Generated", "Digitally Enhanced" or "Synthetic Content" with disclosure of the originating entity
- Paragraph 4 - monitoring by State IT Nodal Officers under the IT Act
- Paragraph 6 - Section 126 Representation of the People Act, 1951 silence period
PURVIEW
Records the Election Commission's directions for the 2026 Assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and West Bengal. Platforms must act on misleading or unlawful AI-generated or manipulated content within 3 hours of it being brought to their notice. Political parties, candidates and campaign representatives must clearly label synthetically generated or AI-altered campaign content as "AI-Generated", "Digitally Enhanced" or "Synthetic Content" and disclose the originating entity. State IT Nodal Officers under the IT Act monitor and act on posts; over 11,000 posts or URLs were acted upon from 15 March 2026. It reiterates the 48-hour silence period under Section 126 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and the C-Vigil complaint module. The labelling duty is an electoral, Model Code of Conduct obligation; the platform-side takedown and synthetic-content labelling framework is supplied by the IT Rules, 2021 as amended in 2026.
Classification and legal status. PIB release of 19 April 2026 (Release ID 2253528) reiterating ECI directions; enforcement rests on the Model Code of Conduct, the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and the IT Act, 2000 and IT Rules, 2021.