INFORMATION and Communications Technology Secretary Ivan John Uy yesterday said a comprehensive law that penalizes online illegal activities is needed to curb the proliferation of scamming, phishing, and deepfakes.
“We need a new law… we need to have a more comprehensive law rather than bits and pieces of legislation that address small items. For instance, you have an anti-scam law, you have an anti-misinformation law, you have anti-deep fake law, something like that,’’ Uy said during the pilot episode of the program “Malacañang Insider.”
Uy said the Philippines also needs more responsive and timely policies to address online issues especially when involving matters of national security.
He said other countries such as Singapore already have the Online Criminal Harm’s Act which penalizes anyone who causes harm online, be it by phishing, scamming, deep fake, or misinformation.
He said Malaysia also has a law requiring social platforms that have over eight million in subscribers or followers to be registered, and have a license or permit, which would enable the government to have some control and impose penalty in case the platform misbehaves or allows misbehavior.
The Philippines, he said, has some measures penalizing separate cases such as those for cyber libel and defamation.
Uy said there is a need for a law that would penalize social media platforms used to spread or commit illegal online activities. He said as enablers, they should share the responsibility.
Uy identified deepfakes as a technology tool used to make something appear to be real when it is not.
“It’s often used for voice and for video images where you can replace somebody else’s voice or somebody else’s video image or photo over an existing image. Deepfake actually has been used for a long-time already in the movies, in the TVs,” he said, likening it to “special effects.”
Uy said many celebrity endorsers and known personalities have fallen victim to deepfakes where their images, videos and voices were used to supposedly endorse certain products. In some cases, the ads were taken down and complaints have been filed with authorities.
The government in April this year flagged down a deepfake audio of President Marcos Jr. supposedly ordering the military to act against a foreign country. Malacañang has denied the giving such an order.
