Alarmed by the apparent spread of artificial intelligence (AI)-generated fraud, Parañaque City 2nd district Rep. Brian Raymund Yamsuan is pursuing in the 20th Congress a measure that imposes strict regulations on the use of deepfakes.

Yamsuan urged his solon-colleagues to pass his proposal under House Bill (HB) No.3214 to protect Filipinos from AI-generated deepfakes that can be “weaponized” to deceive the public, destroy reputations, impersonate individuals, and even depict people in non-consensual sexual content.

He also expressed concern over deepfakes that could be used to manipulate political discourse, and in some instances, even incite hatred or violence.

“There is an urgent need to protect our citizens from being victims of deepfakes,” Yamsuan said.

Under HB No.3214 or the proposed Deepfake Regulation Act, every Filipino shall have the inherent right to one’s own likeness, including one’s face, body and voice, without need of prior registration for trademark or copyright protection.

“Nakakabahala ang mga ganitong pag-abuso ng AI. Kailangan na nating magkaroon nang matibay na batas laban sa mga deepfakes na ang pakay ay mang-scam ng kapwa, manira, o magpakalat ng fake news. Kung hindi tayo aaksyon agad, baka magamit pa ang ganitong teknolohiya para manghikayat na gumawa ng karahasan,” said Yamsuan, vice chairperson of the House Committee on Public Information.

(These cases involving the abuse of AI is alarming. We need to have a strong law against deepfakes used to scam others, malign reputations, or spread fake news. If we will not act now, this technology may even be used to incite violence.)

“Deepfake” is defined under the bill “to refer to any form of media, such as images, videos, or audio files created using artificial intelligence to replicate realistic representations of a person, including one’s face, body and voice.”

Recent deepfakes circulating online have attempted to deceive people into putting their hard-earned money on fake investment scams using manipulated images of celebrities, business tycoons, journalists, and even an incumbent senator.

Yamsuan cited as an example of this deepfake scam a social media post which imitated a news website and claimed that an investigative journalist was set to expose a large investment fund meant for ordinary citizens, but that her superiors forced her to “destroy all materials” related to it.

The scam, which used AI-generated images of the journalist, claimed that clicking a link will lead to a platform where users can register to earn thousands of pesos a month from the supposed fund after providing a small investment.

Yamsuan said the country has laws on data privacy and anti-discrimination but none that specifically governs the use of AI, which is why such scams continue to proliferate.

For those who want to register their likeness as a trademark, the bill calls for the creation of a dedicated office under the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHIL) for this purpose.

HB No.3214 also protects any person whose likeness is used without his or her consent in a deepfake by having the right to request removal of the unauthorized content from the platform on which it is hosted. In turn, the platform should comply with the takedown request within 48 hours from the receipt of the validated complaint.

A Notice and Takedown Office shall be established under the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to receive complaints, validate identities and issue takedown orders, as provided under the measure.

The bill also allows victims of non-consensual deepfakes to claim damages under the Civil Code.

Any person or platform found to have knowingly created, distributed or refused to remove deepfake content after a valid notice shall be penalized with imprisonment from two to five years and a fine ranging from P50,000 to P200,000.

Online platforms failing to comply with takedown requests within the specified 48-hour period shall be fined P50,000 per day of non-compliance under the bill.

According to the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC), a total of 10,004 cybercrime complaints were filed with its office in 2024, more than thrice the 3,317 complaints logged in 2023.