Voters queue up to cast their votes at a polling station in Kalyan Puri, Delhi, during the fourth phase of the 2009 general elections, May 7, 2009.Government Open Data License – India
Amber Sinha is a Tech Policy Press fellow.
Over the next two months, until the results of India's Lok Sabha polls are announced on June 4, Tech Policy Press will be covering the use and impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies in India's general elections. We plan to publish a series of news articles investigating the issue. For important technology policy discussions and debates. The way technology is used in India's elections has important implications not only for the world's largest democracy but also for democracies and elections around the world.
According to the Telegraph, Vashini is an AI translation tool that is “likely to become a special weapon in the Bhartiya Janata Party's arsenal to reach South Indian voters across language barriers.” That's what it means. It began as a joint research project with the Ministry of Electronics. Information Technology (MeitY) in July 2022 as a means to provide easy access to internet and digital services in Indian languages, including voice-based access, and to assist in the creation of content in Indian languages. The National Language Translation Mission has been launched. But tools like Vashini, which The Telegraph reported is pre-installed on the NaMo app run by the Bhartiya Janata Party, have huge potential for Prime Minister Modi and his party.
This AI tool includes the collection of a vast corpus of speech-based data in Indian languages and on-platform speech recognition and machine translation capabilities, which enable real-time speech recognition machine translation in Indian languages. It will be. It offers many possibilities for public sector service delivery, including the expansion of e-government projects as voice bots and private sector business models, especially since the data and translation software are available as open data and open source, respectively.
It is too early to tell whether other political parties will also use this open source tool in this election. But none of them have the trans-regional appeal of PM Modi and his BJP's digital infrastructure, including apps like NaMo and Saral and his WhatsApp groups. In particular, this technology could help PM Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party expand their electoral base.
Despite the Bharatiya Janata Party's significant electoral victories over the past decade, its success in South India has been very limited. While Karnataka has some established regional leaders, the remaining four states are likely to rely heavily on the national appeal of Mr. Modi, who remains their most effective campaigner. The influence of his speeches and oratory will naturally diminish in non-Hindi and Gujarati-speaking regions of the country, especially in southern India. Prime Minister Modi has already used this tool while addressing the Kashi Tamil Sangamam in Varanasi in December 2023. Vashini was used to translate his speech into Tamil. Later in the month, PM Modi's responses were translated live while interacting with participants of the Smart India Hackathon 2023.
Bbashini CEO Amitabh Nag recently said that when the tool was used in December, its live translation feature was still in the testing phase and had a six-second delay. In the current version, Bbashini's live voice translation delay is only 1 second, making it a much more effective tool for live speeches during elections. BJP spokesperson NV Subhash claimed that the tool has a 90% accuracy rate and that this figure is not supported by any audit by Basini. This suggests that this tool is still under development, but could be used effectively for campaign events and other election activities.
WhatsApp and Client Center. With the announcement of polling date in India on March 15, the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) has come into force. The MCC is a set of non-legislative guidelines and recommendations to regulate the behavior of political parties and candidates before the announcement of polling dates, and the Indian government is commemorating the 10th anniversary of elections called 'Vikshit Bharat'. They had started an online campaign. In the Modi government, this included sending WhatsApp messages to people.
Ostensibly, the government's election campaign was run with public funds, but the timing appeared designed to serve the interests of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as it prepared for a general election campaign. The Election Commission of India (ECI) received several complaints regarding government campaigns and WhatsApp messages even after the MCC became operational. In response, the ECI instructed MeitY to suspend campaigning until the election is over.
Self-regulatory regulations regarding political advertising. Besides the MCC, another major regulation is the Self-Regulatory Code. During the 2019 general elections, the ECI introduced a 'voluntary code of ethics' for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections to regulate the use of social media. It was drafted as a self-regulatory code by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and major social media platforms operating in India with the aim of increasing transparency in paid political advertising.
Political advertising on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter was introduced under MCC. Similar to newspaper and radio advertising, parties were required to disclose social media advertising expenditures. This is done by allowing advertisers to submit advance certificates issued by her ECI and the Media Certification and Monitoring Commission (MCMC) for election advertisements carrying the names of political parties and candidates for the upcoming elections. It was done. Candidates were also asked to submit their social media account details while applying for nomination. After the 2019 elections, IAMAI agreed to abide by the Self-Regulatory Code in all future state and national elections.
Election monitoring. The use of technology as a surveillance tool during elections is also influencing elections. A few months ago, the National Informatics Center (NIC) released a call for tenders for the procurement of surveillance technology, such as drones and facial recognition systems, to monitor the electoral process during the general elections. In January 2024, following instructions from ECI, NIC canceled the call. Certain bids proposed by the NIC remain canceled and will not be implemented in the 2014 elections. However, digital infrastructure for surveillance technology, especially facial recognition, already exists in India's local law enforcement agencies, and these tools could be used to monitor elections. For a comprehensive overview of facial recognition technology in India, see here.
Additional reading material.
- Vallari Sanziri reported in Medianama how the introduction of community notes on X, formerly known as Twitter, could be weaponized by the IT cells of Indian political parties.
- The Mozilla Foundation has written to WhatsApp asking it to introduce more friction in message forwarding, reduce broadcasting capabilities and add disinformation labels to viral content.
- An investigation by Access Now and Global Witness found that YouTube is allowing ads containing election misinformation in India.
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