ISLAMABAD(National Times)- The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has proposed amendments to the codes of conduct for political parties and contesting candidates, media and election observers to protect the electoral process from the harmful effects of artificial intelligence (AI).
The commission has shared the draft amendments with stakeholders and sought their feedback by Nov 20.
According to a draft notification issued on Friday, the ECP cited its constitutional duty under Article 218(3) to ensure honest, just and fair elections.
“Therefore, it is the core responsibility of the commission to take all necessary steps to guard against corrupt practices, which also include manipulation of the electoral process through misleading content generated using AI,” the notification said.
Draft bars digitally manipulated ‘defamatory content’; feedback sought by Nov 20
Under the proposed rules, political parties and contesting candidates would be required to clearly disclose all AI-generated campaign material, including deepfake images, audio, video and synthetic voices. Robocalls and voter outreach messages using cloned voices would have to disclose their AI-generated nature at the outset.
The draft prohibits AI-generated content intended to deceive voters or misrepresent individuals. It also bans false, derogatory or defamatory deepfake statements targeting candidates, party leaders, supporters, election officials, the judiciary, state functionaries or the armed forces.
Political parties would be barred from using automated bots or accounts to artificially inflate likes, comments, shares or followers to create a false impression of public support.
They would also be required to retain logs of all AI-assisted campaign content and submit them to the ECP upon request.
Print, electronic and digital media outlets, as well as social media influencers, would be required to explicitly label AI-altered election content. Media houses would remain legally responsible for the factual accuracy of content produced using AI tools for translation, anchoring or analysis.
The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, the Social Media Protection and Regulatory Authority and the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency will actively monitor online platforms. They will submit compliance reports to the ECP, which retains the authority to order immediate content takedowns or re-labelling.
Election observers would be required to identify and promptly report AI-generated deepfakes and disinformation campaigns directly to the ECP without further spreading the misleading material.
They would also be prohibited from using AI to fabricate or embellish election photographs, videos, reports or field observations.
