Deepfakes and Due Process: Rethinking Authenticity of Social Media Evidence in India’s New Digital Evidence Regime

Abstract

The use of social media has become the central point of criminal investigation and trial, providing real time data of behavior, communication, and the location of suspects on WhatsApp, Instagram, and X platforms. However, such material is only accepted by courts when it meets great requirements of relevance, authenticity, integrity and legal collection as per international rules of digital evidence (23711). This theoretical and comparative research examines the transformation of the Indian regime since the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, and IT Act, 2000 (Sections 65A-65B) to Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 which balances electronic records with traditional documents whilst maintaining an intensive and metadata intensive certifications procedure under Section 63 (51018). Using the international literature on social media forensics, metadata-based authentication of digital evidence, and deepfakes, the research identifies core admissibility requirements and compares the practice in India with the international practice (23471416). It recognizes the main issues, such as manipulation and AI generated deepfakes, lapses in the procedure, cross border access to data, insufficient forensic capabilities and judicial skills (135131619). The article explains that the new framework in India is mostly convergent with the best practice in the international world but will be weak without standardization of forensic procedures, platform-specific applications, international partnership, and systematic training of investigators and courts (235716). It ends by suggesting improvements to enhance authenticity checks, chain of custody documentations, and privacy controls to enable the utilization of social media evidence without derailing the rights to fair trials.