Who this is for
This article is for web developers, startup founders, agency owners, and anyone building a product or feature that uses AI to generate, edit, or manipulate images of people. It covers what deepfake technology and AI nudification tools are, why they represent one of the most serious legal risks in technology today, what laws apply in India and internationally, and how to build AI-powered products that are ethical, legal, and defensible.
Artificial intelligence tools that can generate, alter, and manipulate images of real people have become so accessible in 2026 that anyone with a smartphone and an internet connection can produce convincingly realistic fabricated images in seconds. This represents a genuine technological leap. It also represents one of the most serious legal, ethical, and reputational risks in modern technology, particularly for developers and businesses building products in this space.
The keywords that led you to this article, deepfakes, AI nudification tools, platforms hosting manipulated content, are among the most-searched technology terms in India right now. Much of that search traffic comes from people who are curious about the technology, concerned about it, or trying to understand whether something they encountered online is real. Some of it comes from developers and entrepreneurs trying to understand where the legal boundaries sit before they build.
This article addresses all of those audiences directly. We will explain the technology without promoting it, the legal landscape without oversimplifying it, and the development considerations without pretending that ethical AI is complicated to implement when you start with the right principles.
What Deepfakes Actually Are and How the Technology Works
The word deepfake combines deep learning, a category of artificial intelligence, with fake, referring to fabricated media. A deepfake is a piece of video, audio, or image content in which a person’s likeness has been convincingly substituted, added, or manipulated using AI models trained on large datasets of real visual and audio data.
The technology that makes modern deepfakes possible is called a generative adversarial network, or GAN, though newer approaches use diffusion models which produce even more realistic results with less training data. In a GAN, two neural networks compete with each other: one generates fake content, and the other tries to detect whether the content is real or fake. Over thousands of training iterations, the generator gets better at fooling the detector, and the result is a model that can produce extraordinarily convincing fabricated media.
What makes this particularly relevant for developers in 2026 is that these models no longer require weeks of training on thousands of images of a specific person. Modern face-swap and image generation tools can produce convincing results from a single photograph. The barrier to creating a realistic deepfake of any person who has a public photo online, which means virtually everyone, has effectively been eliminated.
AI nudification tools specifically
A subcategory of AI image manipulation that has generated significant legal attention is AI nudification tools, sometimes marketed under terms like nude AI or undress AI. These tools take an image of a clothed person and generate a fabricated image of that person without clothing. They use generative AI models trained on adult content datasets to synthesise what a person might look like undressed.
These tools are illegal to use on images of real people without their explicit consent in a growing number of jurisdictions. They are not a grey area. Using them on images of real people, sharing the outputs, hosting a service that provides this functionality, or building a product that incorporates this capability without robust consent and age verification frameworks is illegal in India, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and an increasing number of US states. The fact that several websites offering this functionality remain accessible does not mean they are legal. It means enforcement has not yet caught up with the pace of the technology.
Legal notice
This article does not link to, endorse, or promote any deepfake generation tool, AI nudification platform, or non-consensual image manipulation service. Platforms offering these services operate illegally in most jurisdictions. Developers who build, host, or facilitate access to such services face criminal liability, not just civil risk.
The Legal Landscape in India and Globally
India
Information Technology Act 2000 and DPDPA 2023
Penalty: Up to 3 years imprisonment and fine under IT Act Section 67 and 67A. DPDPA penalties up to Rs. 250 crore.
Section 67 and 67A of the IT Act criminalise the publication and transmission of obscene material and sexually explicit material respectively in electronic form. Generating and sharing a non-consensual AI-manipulated intimate image of a real person falls squarely within this provision. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 additionally creates serious liability for processing biometric and personal data, including facial images, without explicit informed consent. A deepfake uses a person’s biometric data without consent by definition.
United Kingdom
Online Safety Act 2023 and Criminal Justice Act 2024
Penalty: Unlimited fine. Up to 2 years imprisonment for sharing. Criminal offence for creating non-consensual intimate deepfakes from 2024.
The UK made sharing non-consensual intimate deepfakes a criminal offence under the Online Safety Act 2023. The Criminal Justice Act 2024 went further and criminalised the creation of non-consensual intimate deepfakes regardless of whether they are shared, making the UK one of the strictest jurisdictions in the world on this specific issue. Platforms that host such content and fail to remove it face substantial fines.
European Union
AI Act 2024 and GDPR
Penalty: AI Act fines up to 6% of global annual turnover. GDPR fines up to 4% of global annual turnover.
The EU AI Act, which came into force in 2024, classifies certain AI systems as high-risk or unacceptable-risk. Systems that manipulate images of people in ways that deceive, particularly in ways that could cause harm, fall into restricted categories. GDPR’s consent requirements apply fully to facial recognition data and biometric processing used by deepfake systems. A European company or a company serving European users that builds deepfake tools without proper consent frameworks faces regulatory action under both frameworks simultaneously.
United States
Patchwork of state laws and pending federal legislation
Penalty: Varies by state. California, Texas, New York, and Virginia have criminal penalties. Federal legislation progressing.
The US does not yet have a single federal law specifically addressing deepfakes, though the DEFIANCE Act and similar legislation are progressing. However, multiple states have enacted their own laws. California’s AB 602 and AB 730 address deepfakes in pornography and political contexts respectively. Texas and Virginia have criminal statutes covering non-consensual deepfake intimate images. Platforms operating in the US face both state-level criminal exposure and civil liability under existing privacy and harassment law frameworks.
Why This Matters Specifically for Web Developers and Agencies
If you are a developer or agency owner, you might be wondering why a guide specifically about deepfake law is relevant to you. The answer is that the line between building a legitimate AI-powered product and building something that creates legal liability is thinner than most developers assume, and the consequences of crossing it are severe.
The API integration liability question
Many developers building AI-powered features do not train their own models. They call third-party APIs. If you integrate an AI image generation or editing API into your product, and that API can be used to generate non-consensual intimate images of real people, you may share liability for the outputs it produces. Courts and regulators in multiple jurisdictions are actively working through the question of where liability sits between the model provider, the API developer, and the product that exposes the functionality to end users. The safe answer from a developer’s perspective is to treat any AI image manipulation capability as requiring explicit safeguards, regardless of which layer of the stack it sits at.
Terms of service do not protect you from criminal law
A common misconception among developers is that adding a terms of service clause prohibiting misuse of a platform is sufficient protection against legal liability for what users do with it. It is not. Terms of service are a contractual tool, not a criminal law defence. If your platform knowingly provides functionality that enables criminal activity, or if you fail to implement reasonable safeguards against foreseeable criminal misuse, terms of service clauses will not shield you from regulatory action or criminal prosecution. They will slightly influence civil litigation but nothing more.
The consent architecture is not optional
Any legitimate AI product that processes images of real people needs a consent architecture built into its core functionality from the beginning. This is not a privacy enhancement. It is a legal requirement under India’s DPDPA, the EU’s GDPR, and data protection laws in every major jurisdiction. Consent architecture means obtaining explicit, informed, freely given consent for each specific use of a person’s image data, storing proof of that consent in a way that can be produced for regulators, providing clear mechanisms for consent withdrawal, and deleting the data promptly when consent is withdrawn. Building this retroactively is substantially harder and more expensive than building it from the start.
What Legitimate AI Image Technology Looks Like
Not all AI image technology is ethically or legally problematic. The question is always whether the person whose image is being processed has given informed consent and whether the use serves a legitimate purpose. Several categories of AI image technology are straightforwardly legitimate and commercially valuable.
Legitimate use case
AI-powered photo editing with explicit consent
Photography platforms, e-commerce product photography tools, and professional headshot services that use AI to enhance, retouch, or stylise images that the user themselves has uploaded are entirely legitimate. The user is the subject of the image and has consented to the processing by using the service. This category includes virtual try-on technology for fashion and eyewear retail, background removal and replacement, skin retouching for professional photography, and AI upscaling for low-resolution images.The consent in these cases is clear because the user is uploading their own image and explicitly requesting the processing. The architecture is straightforward. The legal exposure is minimal when the terms of service clearly describe what processing is performed and data retention policies are clearly communicated.
Legitimate use case
Deepfake detection tools
The same technology that creates convincing deepfakes can be used to detect them. Deepfake detection APIs and tools are used by news organisations to verify whether video footage is authentic, by social media platforms to identify and label manipulated content, by law enforcement for digital forensics, and by businesses to verify identity documents and video calls in authentication workflows.Building a deepfake detection tool or integrating one into a content moderation or identity verification system is an unambiguously legitimate use of the underlying technology. The developer community, journalism, and digital security all benefit from better deepfake detection capability, and this is an area where skilled developers can contribute meaningfully to solving a genuine social problem.
Legitimate use case
AI avatars and digital personas with full consent
Creating AI-generated digital avatars or personas for individuals who have explicitly consented to and participated in the creation process is legitimate. This includes virtual influencer products where the person controls and owns their digital likeness, AI-generated spokesperson avatars created with a real person’s participation and ongoing consent, training data generation where participants are fully informed and compensated, and creative tools where users generate stylised versions of themselves.
The distinguishing factor in all legitimate cases is that the person whose likeness is involved has genuine agency in the process: they chose to participate, they understand what will be created, and they retain meaningful control over how the output is used.
How to Build Ethical AI-Powered Products: A Developer’s Checklist
If you are building any product that processes, generates, or manipulates images of real people using AI, these are the non-negotiable elements of an ethical and legally compliant architecture.
Requirement 1
Explicit, granular consent for every processing purpose
Consent must be specific to each use case. Consent to upload a photo for profile creation is not consent to use that photo to train your AI model. Consent to generate a stylised avatar is not consent to use the output in marketing materials. Every distinct processing purpose requires its own consent, clearly described in plain language, obtained before the processing happens.
In India, the DPDPA requires that consent requests be presented in a clear, standalone manner, not bundled with other terms. Each consent must describe the specific data being collected, the specific purpose it will be used for, and the entity processing it. Record the timestamp, the version of the consent text shown, and the mechanism by which consent was given for every consent event.
Requirement 2
Age verification before any image processing
If your product processes images of people, you need a robust mechanism to verify that users are adults and that the images they upload do not depict minors. The legal exposure from processing images of minors, even in entirely non-sexual contexts, is substantial in most jurisdictions. CSAM laws in India and internationally apply to AI-generated content depicting minors in addition to real images.
Age verification mechanisms range from requiring date of birth with a plausible check against other account data, to integration with government ID verification APIs for higher-risk applications. The appropriate level of verification depends on the nature of the processing your product performs. Higher-risk image manipulation requires stronger verification.
Requirement 3
Content moderation and output filtering
AI image generation models can produce harmful outputs even when the user’s stated intent is legitimate. Every product that generates images must implement output filtering to prevent the generation and storage of illegal content. This means integrating content safety classifiers that evaluate generated images before they are returned to users or stored, maintaining audit logs of generation requests and outputs for legal compliance purposes, and having a clear process for reporting and removing illegal content if it is identified.
Relying on the base model’s safety filters without your own additional layer is insufficient. Model providers update their safety systems and no safety system is perfect. Building your own moderation layer is a legal necessity for any commercial AI image product.
Requirement 4
Data minimisation and clear retention policies
Do not store image data longer than necessary for the specific service you are providing. If your product enhances a photo and returns the result, you do not need to store the original image after the processing is complete unless there is a specific, consented reason to do so. Under the DPDPA and GDPR, storing personal data including facial images beyond the period necessary for the consented purpose is itself a violation.
Define clear data retention periods for every category of image data your product handles. Implement automated deletion. Provide users with a clear, functional mechanism to request deletion of their data and implement it within the legally required timeframe, which is 30 days under the DPDPA.
What to Do If You or Someone You Know Is a Victim of Deepfake Content
Given that this article will be read by people who are searching for information about deepfake platforms, it is important to include clear guidance for anyone who has been a victim of non-consensual AI-generated intimate imagery or deepfake content.
In India, you can report non-consensual intimate images and deepfake content to the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal at cybercrime.gov.in. The Indian Penal Code provisions on defamation and IT Act provisions on publishing obscene and sexually explicit content both apply to deepfakes. File a First Information Report at your local police station citing Section 67 and 67A of the IT Act. Keep copies of the content, the URL where it appears, and any communication you have received related to it.
Contact the platform hosting the content directly. Major platforms including Google, Meta, Instagram, and X all have specific reporting mechanisms for non-consensual intimate images, and they are legally required to remove such content promptly in multiple jurisdictions. Google’s SafeSearch reporting mechanism specifically handles removal of non-consensual intimate images from search results. Removal from search results significantly reduces the reach and impact of the content even before the host platform acts.
Organisations including iCall, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, and the National Commission for Women provide support and legal assistance for victims of cybercrime including deepfake-related harm. You do not need to navigate this alone, and the law is on your side.
The Responsibility of Developers in the AI Era
The technology that creates deepfakes and AI-generated imagery is the same technology that powers legitimate, valuable applications across medicine, creative industries, accessibility, and security. The difference between a tool that harms people and a tool that helps them is almost entirely a function of the choices made by the people who build it.
As a developer, the decisions you make at the architecture stage, whether to implement consent, what safeguards to build, what use cases to enable and which to deliberately prevent, shape the real-world impact of what you build more than any single subsequent decision. A product built with consent and safety as design constraints from the beginning is fundamentally different from one where these are added as afterthoughts in response to user complaints or regulatory pressure.
India’s technology sector is growing faster than the regulatory framework that governs it. That creates both opportunity and responsibility. Developers who build with ethics and compliance as genuine priorities, not marketing language, will build products that survive regulatory scrutiny, earn user trust, and create lasting value. Those who do not will face the consequences of regulations that are catching up quickly.
Inspired Monks builds websites and web applications with this philosophy. Not because regulation requires it in every case, but because building things properly is what professional web development actually means.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it illegal to use AI nudification tools on images of people in India?
Yes. Using AI nudification tools on images of real people without their explicit consent is illegal in India under the Information Technology Act 2000. Section 67A specifically addresses the electronic publication of sexually explicit material, and generating a fabricated intimate image of a real person falls within its scope. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 adds additional liability for processing biometric data including facial images without consent. Both criminal and civil remedies are available to victims.
Can I build a website that uses AI to generate images of people?
Yes, with the right architecture. AI-generated images of real people are legally permissible when the people depicted have given explicit informed consent for their likeness to be used in that specific way. Legitimate use cases include AI avatar creation tools where users generate images of themselves, professional photography enhancement tools, and virtual try-on applications. The consent framework, age verification, content moderation, and data retention policies must all be properly implemented. If your product can generate images of real people who have not consented, it requires stronger safeguards or that capability should not exist in the product at all.
What are deepfake detection tools and how do they work?
Deepfake detection tools use AI models trained on both authentic and AI-generated media to identify statistical patterns that distinguish real content from fabricated content. These patterns include subtle inconsistencies in facial geometry, unnatural blinking patterns, lighting inconsistencies, and artefacts in the high-frequency details of images that generative models struggle to reproduce accurately. Commercial deepfake detection APIs are available from providers including Microsoft, Intel, and several specialist security companies. Accuracy rates have improved significantly but are not perfect, particularly against the latest generation of diffusion model outputs.
What is the Mr. Deepfake website and is it legal?
Mr. Deepfake is a website that has hosted non-consensual deepfake content involving real people, primarily targeting public figures. Accessing, creating, sharing, or hosting non-consensual deepfake intimate imagery is illegal in India, the UK, and many other jurisdictions. The existence of such platforms reflects enforcement gaps rather than legal permissibility. Platforms of this kind are the subject of active regulatory attention globally. Using, sharing, or linking to content from such platforms creates legal exposure for the user.
How does India’s DPDPA affect developers building AI products?
The Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 applies to any entity that processes the personal data of Indian residents, including developers building products outside India that are used by Indian users. Facial images and biometric data are among the most sensitive categories of personal data under the Act. Processing them requires explicit, informed, specific consent. The Data Protection Board of India can impose penalties of up to Rs. 250 crore for significant violations. For developers building AI products that process images of people, DPDPA compliance requires consent architecture, data minimisation, clear retention policies, and a functional data deletion mechanism from day one.
What should I do if I find a deepfake of myself online?
Report it immediately to the platform hosting it using their specific reporting mechanism for non-consensual intimate images. Report it to Google for removal from search results at google.com/webmasters/tools/removals. File a complaint at cybercrime.gov.in and at your local police station under IT Act Sections 67 and 67A. Keep records of the content, where it appeared, when you found it, and all communications. Contact the National Commission for Women or iCall if you need support. Do not attempt to contact or confront the person responsible directly.
Building an AI-powered product or feature? Do it the right way.Inspired Monks helps startups and businesses build ethical AI-integrated websites and web applications with proper consent frameworks, privacy-first architecture, and legal compliance built in from day one. Not as an afterthought.
Talk to Our Team at inspiredmonks.com
Written by the Inspired Monks Team
Inspired Monks is a WordPress and custom web development agency helping businesses across India build digital products that are fast, secure, ethical, and built to last. We have delivered 50+ projects across cybersecurity, interior design, manufacturing, retail, and more.
