The Standing Committee on Information Technology will review 17 subjects, including social media norms, AI, deepfakes, and chips, during 2026-27. An official bulletin said on Wednesday that the panel will examine these topics as concerns grow over digital safety, cybersecurity, and the need for guardrails around new technology and infrastructure.
Synopsis
The development comes as several incidents of age-inappropriate content, circulation of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and alleged censorship on social media have been reported widely.
Listen to this article in summarized format
New Delhi: Social media regulation, safe AI, regulation on deepfakes, cybersecurity, and the semiconductor ecosystem are among the 17 subjects the Standing Committee on Information Technology will take up for review during 2026-27, an official bulletin said on Wednesday.
The development comes as several incidents of age-inappropriate content, circulation of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and alleged censorship on social media have been reported widely.
"The Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology have selected the following subjects for examination during the year 2026-27...Social and digital platforms and their regulation... Cybersecurity, Data Protection and Digital Trusts, Regulation of Synthetically Generated Information (SGI) involving AI, deepfakes and automated identity fraud etc... Safety controls, ethical standards and need for guardrails around the development and deployment of AI," the bulletin said.
Off late, use and misuse of AI has become a huge debate where governments across the world have started talking about safe and responsible use of AI.
India's cybersecurity agency CERT-In, in the middle of October, issued a 'critical' advisory warning that autonomous Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents have accessed live systems and confidential data of Indian organisations without authorisation, while threat actors are actively weaponising open-source agentic AI tools to execute rapid cyberattacks.
CERT-In also issued a note to alert stakeholders about breaches in some of the critical infrastructure assets and the widely used programming language PHP.
The panel will review digital infrastructure in central and state governments, banks, public sector units and organisations during 2026-27.
India's Semiconductor Ecosystem - Growth, Opportunities and Challenges, development of India's Cloud and Data Centre Infrastructure, review of High-Performance Computing (HPC), Quantum Computing (QC) milestones, indigenous AI/Machine Learning models and Regulatory Standards, India's power sector resilience to support IT Revolution 2.0 and data Centres, advanced R&D, emerging tech and electronics manufacturing will also be reviewed by the parliamentary panel.
The panel will also review biometric data and technologies for current and future uses, scrutiny of the regulatory framework available in the country to tackle algorithmic bias and consumer protection and e-waste management in green computing in India.
(Catch all the Technology News News, and Latest News Updates on The Economic Times.)