Bill filed to regulate artificial intelligence use in 2025 polls

MANILA, Philippines — A bill regulating the use of artificial intelligence before the May 2025 midterm elections amid cybersecurity threats and deepfakes has been filed before the House of Representatives.

House Bill 10567 aims to regulate AI amid the threat posed by the proliferation of deepfakes or digitally altered images and audio or video recordings that misrepresent victims.

“The warning by DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology) Secretary Ivan John Uy on the threats that deepfakes and generative AI tools pose to the electoral process should prompt us legislators to write new legislation regulating the use of AI technology,” said Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte, the bill’s author. 

The measure will penalize producers or distributors of deepfake materials who fail to make public disclosures that the altered images, audio or video recordings are deepfakes.

Violators will face fines of up to P5 million.

Deepfakes are meant to misrepresent real people as doing or saying something that was not done or said.

Uy earlier tackled the rise of a “scamdemic” using deepfake and generative AI tools.

“Deepfakes and generative AI tools are also threatening the electoral process when unscrupulous individuals use them for political gain. Especially during elections, where they use them whether to malign or to discredit certain people by attributing quotations or phrases that are extremely unpopular and then making it appear that that person uttered those statements,” he warned.

“And that becomes even more destructive if they’re released a few days before people cast their ballot, so that there is no more time anymore for the real person to say, ‘I never said that,’” he added.

Meanwhile, the DICT has raised a red flag amid hackers’ use of deepfakes and AI, which could alter the results of the 2025 polls. 

DICT Undersecretary Jeffrey Ian Dy called on House lawmakers to draft legislation regulating AI, especially the creation of “misleading videos.”

Broadcasters and news reporters have been featured in altered videos on social media, wherein they supposedly endorsed products or reported fake news, Dy told the joint House committees of information and communication technology and public information, respectively headed by Reps. Toby Tiangco and Jose Aquino III.