In an age when Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated content is flooding social media, the State Election Commission is planning to keep its eyes peeled to make sure that such materials do not ‘contaminate’ the election scene in the upcoming 2025 local body polls in Kerala.
State Election Commissioner A. Shajahan told The Hindu that the commission is putting in place measures to keep a close watch on AI-generated content given the concerns over their possible misuse during election campaigns in the coming weeks.
The commission, tasked with holding the local body elections in a free and fair manner, will have experts at the State and district levels. These experts will be part of the regular media relation committees that will be monitoring election-related news, Mr. Shajahan said.
Kerala goes to the poll booth in two phases on December 9 and December 11.
While announcing the election schedule on Monday, Mr. Shajahan had advised caution against the possible spread of fake news using AI and social media in general.
EC advisory
With AI-generated material posing a new challenge for election officials, the SEC is also planning to adapt the advisory issued by the Election Commission (EC) of India in October for Kerala-specific use in the local body polls, according to Mr. Shajahan.
In an October 24 communique to recognised political parties ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections, the EC had described the misuse of synthetically generated information as a “deep threat and challenge.”
Titled ‘Advisory on responsible use and disclosure of synthetically generated information and AI-generated content during elections,’ the EC, which handles elections to the State Assemblies and the Parliament, had gone on to observe that “the misuse of hyper-realistic synthetically generated information, including depicting political leaders making electorally-sensitive messages, is contaminating the level-playing field in the electoral arena.”
Among other things, the EC guidelines require all synthetically generated or AI-altered image, audio or video used in election campaigns to prominently display the labels ‘AI-generated,’ ‘Digitally enhanced,’ or ‘Synthetic content,’ covering at least 10% of the visible display area. In the case of audio content, the requirement is initial 10% duration of the content and in the case of videos, the label should be visible at the top of the screen.
Published – November 12, 2025 09:41 am IST
