According to a draft rule released by China’s top cybersecurity watchdog group, China plans to require companies that provide deepfakes and similar artificial intelligence (AI) services to verify users’ identities and promote Chinese socialist values, as Beijing continues to tighten the screws on potentially disruptive technologies.
The “Internet Information Service Deep Synthesis Governance Rules” released Friday by the China Cyberspace Administration committed to regulate technologies that create or manipulate using deep learning such as face exchange and image enhancement to enhance text, images, audio or video. The rules are open for public consultation until February 28, with the final version subject to change.
The draft regulation requires deepfake services providers to verify the identities of users before granting them access to related products. Companies must also “respect social morals and ethics” and “follow the right political course”.
This rule is the latest in a long set of rules Beijing has developed to address the risks associated with new consumer technologies. Earlier this month, China issued a regulation regarding the control of algorithms designed to recommend articles, videos, games and products to app users.
In 2019, China issued a regulation banning online video and audio providers using deep learning to create fake news.
Last March, Chinese regulators invited 11 major tech companies, including ByteDance, Alibaba Group Holding, and Tencent Holdings, to a conference and ordered them to conduct a security review on the use of deepfake technology on their platforms. .. The company was asked to submit the results of the review.
This move is taking place in the midst of Beijing’s growing legislative efforts to protect user privacy in cyberspace.
The latest draft regulation requires service providers to obtain user consent before providing “important editing capabilities for biometric information such as faces and human voices.” All computer files modified by deepfake technology should be marked as such.
The proposed rules also require service providers to set up a complaint system to prevent users from disseminating false information. App stores should ban or remove deepfake service providers when ordered by the authorities.
Law can be prosecuted under the Civil and Criminal Code, and the first offender can be fined up to 100,000 yuan (US$16,000).
