By Qashf Aizdi
LAHORE, (Pakistan): Digital consent is dead as automated systems invade our devices, applications, and websites without permission. Even a basic online search now forces unwanted AI-generated summaries onto users instead of traditional results. Far beyond mere convenience issues, modern technology easily manipulates reality by swapping faces, cloning voices, and fabricating hyper-realistic videos that spread globally in seconds. Consequently, the public can no longer distinguish authentic content from deepfakes, proving that our digital spaces are drowning in artificial media. AI has officially outpaced human control, deeply embedding itself into daily life while advancing at a speed that leaves legal frameworks entirely behind.
The real challenge is no longer about AI permeating society without permission, but whether existing regulations can actually handle its fallout. Outdated tech legislation fails to address the unique harms caused by modern, complex innovations. Specifically, synthetic identity theft creates massive hurdles for privacy, consent, and legal accountability. When a person’s face or voice is hijacked and spread online, assigning guilt and providing justice becomes incredibly complicated. Because technological advancement will not slow down, Pakistan must urgently build a modern legislative framework to neutralize these threats before they become unmanageable.
Pakistan handles cybercrime through a law called the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), which was made in 2016. Because this law is old, it was not built for today’s advanced technology. It stops basic crimes like hacking, online fraud, and cyberstalking, but it completely ignores deepfakes, AI identity theft, and voice cloning.
A recent change to the law added a rule called Section 26A. This rule punishes people who spread fake news to cause public panic or fear. While this might stop a few bad AI posts, it does not solve the real problem of deepfakes. Most AI fakes are not made to start public riots. Instead, they are used to ruin a single person’s reputation, steal their voice, fake their video, or destroy their privacy.
This creates a significant legal gap that leaves internet users highly vulnerable. The core danger of a deepfake stretches far beyond the mere dissemination of incorrect information or fake news. The deeper, more insidious problem lies in the unauthorised weaponisation of a person’s face, voice, and biometric likeness completely without their knowledge or consent.
While traditional cybercrime regulations can penalise basic digital offenses like hacking or text-based defamation, they are entirely blind to the complex legal questions introduced by modern artificial intelligence. Current laws fail to define who legally owns a person’s digital identity, who should face criminal liability when that identity is synthetically manipulated, and what fast-track legal remedies are available to help a victim clear their name.
As generative AI rapidly evolves to perfectly mirror not just a person’s appearance but their exact vocal cadence and physical behaviors, Pakistan’s legal system cannot afford to remain static. The state must urgently develop targeted synthetic media legislation to safeguard the digital rights, privacy, and personal dignity of its citizens before the technology outpaces any possibility of legal control.
Global regulatory bodies have proactively initiated legal countermeasures to mitigate these novel dimensions of digital damage. A prime example is the European Union’s landmark AI Act, which enforces strict transparency mandates on synthesized or modified digital media. Concurrently, nations like the United States have pioneered specialized statutes focused exclusively on penalizing the generation and dissemination of unauthorized deepfakes. These international legislative shifts reveal that AI-driven offenses are no longer lumped together with standard digital misconduct. Instead, they are universally acknowledged as a completely unique category of legal crisis that demands bespoke statutory rules and judicial solutions.
This exact crisis has already crossed into Pakistani territory. Just recently, law enforcement personnel in Bahawalnagar apprehended an individual accused of engineering an explicit, AI-manipulated video targeting a female content creator and spreading it across digital networks. This specific event exposes how artificial intelligence can completely forge realistic media using an actual individual’s likeness. This creates a deeply personal category of psychological and social damage that operates on a totally different level than standard internet bullying or trolling.
While PECA serves as the foundational legal matrix for prosecuting network-based infractions, its architecture was engineered solely to neutralize the digital threats and abuses prevalent during its mid-2010s drafting. The explosive rise of hyper-realistic deepfakes, synthetic identity hijacking, and cloned audio footprints clearly proves that the current statutory framework can no longer police every dangerous byproduct of automated innovation. The state of Pakistan should not fear technological modernization itself, but rather the unchecked social devastation it breeds. Statutory protections must advance alongside scientific breakthroughs to guarantee that technological progress does not destroy personal privacy, human dignity, and fundamental civil liberties. Artificial intelligence is an unchangeable fixture of modern existence. The nation’s legal apparatus simply cannot survive while lagging in the past. Technological innovation will never pause for legislative debates. The ultimate dilemma is whether Pakistan’s legal system will rise to the challenge.
