NEW DELHI: The Centre told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that it was considering a policy framework to tackle child pornography and the circulation of non-consensual explicit content involving adults.
The submission was made before a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, which was hearing a batch of petitions flagging the widespread circulation of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and non-consensual intimate images, including AI-generated deepfake nudes.
During the hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the government was in advanced deliberations to frame a comprehensive policy to address CSAM and non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII).
He said the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) was working with the Ministry of Women and Child Development to amend the IT Rules to ensure stricter compliance by intermediaries such as Meta, Google, X and Telegram, including the mandatory deployment of content detection tools.
Mehta submitted that the policy would include proactive monitoring using AI, mandatory reporting to law enforcement agencies within specified timelines, the creation of a national hash database, and a centralised portal for victims to report NCII content anonymously.
The bench noted that the current mechanism was inadequate and that victims suffered prolonged trauma because of delays in taking down such content.
The petitions have sought directions to ensure that intermediaries block CSAM at source, prevent its re-upload through hash matching, and create a victim-friendly reporting system.
The court asked the Centre to file an affidavit within four weeks outlining the steps taken and the proposed timeline. It posted the matter for further hearing on November 17.