New Delhi: Based on a written complaint by the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), the Delhi Police’s Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit Friday filed an FIR in connection with a deep fake viral video that featured actor Rashmika Mandanna.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (IFSO) Hemant Tiwari in a statement issued Saturday, said the case has been filed against unidentified persons under IPC sections 465 (forgery) and 469 (forgery with intent to harm reputation), in addition to sections 66C (identity theft) and 66E (capturing, publishing, or transmitting a private image of another person without their consent) of the IT Act, 2000.
The FIR, the statement added, was lodged on the basis of a complaint by the DCW, whose chairperson Swati Maliwal sent a notice to the Delhi Police Cyber Cell, Friday, seeking action against those who created and shared the video on social media.
“On 10/11/2023, we received a complaint from the Delhi Commission of Women, which took suo motu notice of the deep fake video of Indian actress Rashmika Mandanna that was widely circulated on various social media platforms,” the DCP heading the IFSO unit said in the statement, adding that IFSO is examining the video for clues and had sought information from social media companies to identify the culprits.
“We are conducting the technical analysis and obtaining details from the Meta and other social media platforms to identify the accused,” read the statement.
It went on to say that the DCW has asked the Delhi Police to submit a report on legal action taken in this matter by 17 November.
The deep fake video featuring Mandanna surfaced on social media on 5 November following which Union Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, termed deep fakes as the “latest and even more damaging form of misinformation” while calling on social media platforms to deal with the issue.
PM @narendramodi ji's Govt is committed to ensuring Safety and Trust of all DigitalNagriks using Internet
Under the IT rules notified in April, 2023 – it is a legal obligation for platforms to
➡️ensure no misinformation is posted by any user AND
➡️ensure that when reported by… https://t.co/IlLlKEOjtd
— Rajeev Chandrasekhar 🇮🇳 (@Rajeev_GoI) November 6, 2023
He added that social media platforms will have to comply with the provisions of the notified IT Act, 2023, which mandates that social media users must ensure that they do not post any misinformation on their platforms and if any misinformation is reported by the government or any user, it must be deleted within 36 hours.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)