How do you remove a deepfake video from the internet in India?
Key takeaways
- The February 2026 amendments to the IT Rules 2021, effective 20 February 2026, cut flagged-content takedown from 36 hours to three hours and non-consensual intimate imagery removal to two hours.
- User-reported grievances must now be resolved within seven days, down from 15, and platforms must inform users of the AI rules every three months.
- AI-generated content must be labelled by Significant Social Media Intermediaries with 50 lakh or more registered Indian users, with unique metadata embedded for instant identification.
- Police and cybercrime.gov.in accept complaints, and the cyber crime helpline 1930 is staffed to take incident reports, but neither removes content directly.
- A deepfake removal engagement for an individual or a company in India typically takes 2 to 6 weeks across all platforms, because a single upload can be re-mirrored within hours.
As of 24 October 2026: the service descriptions, prices and turnaround figures on this page are current.
What is the fastest legal route to remove a deepfake in India?
The fastest route is a platform grievance filed against the hosting platform under the IT Rules 2021, supported by a police complaint so the content is treated as a reportable offence. Since the February 2026 amendments, effective 20 February 2026, flagged unlawful content must be taken down within three hours of notification, and non-consensual intimate imagery within two hours, down from 24. Those windows bind the platform, not the complainant, so what you control is the quality of the evidence bundle you hand over. The bundle should contain the URL, a full-page screenshot with a visible timestamp, a copy of the downloaded file with its hash, and a short statement of who the person is and why the content is false or non-consensual. That bundle is reusable across every platform, which is why we prepare it once.
Why does the content come back after removal?
Because a removal campaign is a detection campaign, and the person behind the deepfake is watching. The re-upload usually happens within hours on a different account, a different platform, or a mirror that has no complaint process at all. That is the reason to work in three tracks at once: takedown on the identified hosts, watermark and provenance work on your own public footage so the deepfake can be attributed, and monitoring to catch the re-uploads fast enough to matter. AAVETech runs this as a monitored takedown campaign, and we report the removal rate, the surviving mirrors and the re-upload pattern in a weekly log, because the honest metric is not the first takedown but the percentage still live after 30 days.
What legal grounds can be used for a takedown notice?
Four, and it is worth using all of them. Personality rights and defamation, where the content attributes false statements or a false identity to a real person, which in India engages the IT Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Non-consensual intimate imagery, which now carries the two-hour takedown window. Copyright, where the underlying footage is yours, which is the cleanest and fastest ground, because the platform cannot argue with ownership. And a CERT-In or police report number, which changes the priority queue inside the platform's trust and safety team. Whichever ground you lead with, do not state the ground you wish to rely on; state the fact. A notice that argues about defamation gets argued with, and a notice that attaches a report number and a file hash does not.
What does a deepfake removal service in India actually cost?
Two components, priced separately. A one-off evidence and takedown pass across the major platforms is typically Rs 15,000 to Rs 40,000 excluding 18% GST, covering the forensic capture, the notice package, the filings and the first re-upload sweep. A monitored campaign, which is what most people actually need because deepfakes reappear, runs Rs 12,000 to Rs 30,000 per month depending on how many platforms and variants are tracked. An individual who wants the deepfake gone and does not want to be identified publicly is quoted the lower one-off figure. A company facing a running campaign against its CEO, its brand or its founder needs the monitored version, because one pass does not hold.
| Route | What it achieves | Typical time to effect |
|---|---|---|
| Platform grievance under the IT Rules 2021 | Content removed by the hosting platform | 3 hours for flagged content, once the platform is notified |
| Non-consensual intimate imagery route | Mandatory rapid removal by the intermediary | 2 hours, down from 24 |
| Police complaint and NCRP / helpline 1930 | Creates a report number that raises platform priority | 1 to 7 days for the report number |
| Notice to the intermediary hosting a mirror | Removal from hosts without a user complaint process | 3 to 14 days |
| Copyright or personality-rights notice | Removal on ownership or false-identity grounds | 1 to 10 days |
What are the frequently asked questions?
Get a straight answer on this
Send us the URL of the deepfake and a screenshot, and we will return a takedown plan with the evidence package and a 48-hour first-action timeline.
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