The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on February 10, 2026, issued the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2026 to further amend the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
The following amendments have been stated:
• in rule 3,—
(a) in sub-rule (1),—
(i) for clause (c), the following clauses shall be substituted, namely:—
“(c) an intermediary shall periodically inform its users, at least once every three months, in a simple and effective manner through its rules and regulations, privacy policy, user agreement, or any other appropriate means, in English or any language specified in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution, that—
(i) in case of non-compliance with such rules and regulations, privacy policy or user agreement, by whatever name called, it has the right to terminate or suspend the access or usage rights of the users to the computer resource immediately, or to remove or disable access to non-compliant information, or both, as the case may be;
(ii) where such non-compliance relates to the creation, generation, modification, alteration, hosting, displaying, uploading, publishing, transmitting, storing, updating, sharing or otherwise disseminating of information in contravention of any law for the time being in force, the user who is responsible for such noncompliance may be liable to penalty or punishment under the provisions of the Act or any other applicable law; and
(iii) where such violation relates to the commission of an offence under any law for the time being in force, such as the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (46 of 2023) or the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (32 of 2012) which requires such offence to be mandatorily reported, reporting of such offence to the appropriate authority in accordance with the provisions of the applicable law;
(ca) without prejudice to sub-clauses (i) and (ii) of clause (c), where an intermediary referred to under sub-rule (3) offers a computer resource which enables, permits or facilitates the creation, generation, modification, alteration, publication, transmission, sharing, or dissemination of information as synthetically generated information, such intermediary shall additionally inform its users that—
(i) directing, instructing or otherwise causing the computer resource of the intermediary for creation, generation, modification, alteration publication, transmission, sharing, or dissemination of information as synthetically generated information in contravention of sub-clause (i) of clause (a) of subrule (3) may attract penalty or punishment as may be applicable under any law for the time being in force, including the provisions of the Act, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (45 of 2023), the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (32 of 2012), the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (43 of 1951), the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986 (60 of 1986), the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition And Redressal) Act, 2013 (14 of 2013), and the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 (104 of 1956); and
(ii) any such contravention of sub-clause (i) of clause (a) of sub-rule (3) may lead to—
(I) the immediate disabling of access to or removal of such information;
(II) suspension or termination of the user account of the user who violates this sub-rule without vitiating the evidence;
(III) in accordance with applicable law, identification of such user and disclosure of the identity of the violating user to the complainant, where such complainant is a victim of, or an individual acting on behalf of a victim of, such contravention; and
(IV) where such violation relates to the commission of an offence under any law for the time being in force, including the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (46 of 2023) or the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (32 of 2012) which requires such offence to be mandatorily reported, reporting of such offence to the appropriate authority in accordance with the provisions of the applicable law;
(cb) where an intermediary becomes aware, either on its own accord or upon receipt of actual knowledge or on the basis of any grievance, complaint or information received under these rules, of any violation of sub-rule (3), in relation to the creation, generation, modification, alteration, hosting, displaying, uploading, publishing, transmitting, storing, updating, sharing or otherwise dissemination of information as synthetically generated information covered under sub-clause (ii) of clause (a), it shall take expeditious and appropriate action, including those specified in sub-clause (ii) of clause (ca);”.
• In rule 3, after sub-rule (2), the following sub-rule shall be inserted, namely:—
“(3) Due diligence in relation to synthetically generated information:
(a) Where an intermediary offers a computer resource which may enable, permit, or facilitate the creation, generation, modification, alteration, publication, transmission, sharing, or dissemination of information as synthetically generated information, it shall ensure that,—
(i) it deploys reasonable and appropriate technical measures, including automated tools or other suitable mechanisms, to not allow any user to create, generate, modify, alter, publish, transmit, share, or disseminate, as the case may be, any such synthetically generated information that violates any law for the time being in force, including the Act, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (45 of 2023), Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (32 of 2012), Explosive Substances Act, 1908 (6 of 1908), and includes any such synthetically generated information that,—
(I) contains child sexual exploitative and abuse material, non-consensual intimate imagery content, or is obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, invasive of another person’s privacy, including bodily privacy, vulgar, indecent or sexually explicit; or
(II) results in the creation, generation, modification or alteration of any false document or false electronic record; or
(III) relates to the preparation, development or procurement of explosive material, arms or ammunition; or (IV) falsely depicts or portrays a natural person or real-world event by misrepresenting, in a manner that is likely to deceive, such person’s identity, voice, conduct, action, statement, or such event as having occurred, with or without the involvement of natural person; and
(ii) every such information not covered under sub-clause (i) of clause (a) is prominently labelled in a manner that ensures prominent visibility in the visual display that is easily noticeable and adequately perceivable, or, in the case of audio content, through a prominently prefixed audio disclosure, that can be used to immediately identify that such information is synthetically generated information which has been created, generated, modified or altered using a computer resource and such information shall be embedded with a permanent metadata or other appropriate technical provenance mechanisms, to the extent technically feasible, including a unique identifier, to identify the computer resource of the intermediary used to create, generate, modify or alter such information;
(b) the intermediary shall not enable the modification, suppression or removal of the label, permanent metadata, including the unique identifier, displayed or embedded in accordance with sub-clause (ii) of clause (a).”.
• In the said rules, in rule 7, for the words “the Indian Penal Code”, the words, figures and brackets “the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (45 of 2023)” shall be substituted.
They shall come into force on February 20, 2026.
[Notification No. G.S.R. 120(E)]
