India bets on AI detection; regulators worldwide should watch what happens next

India's IT Amendment Rules 2026 regarding synthetically generated information take effect on February 20, requiring platforms to deploy automated tools to detect whether content is synthetically generated, otherwise they may lose the safe harbor protection under Section 79 of the IT Act. Three authors from WITNESS argue that current detection tools produce inconsistent results across different file types, modalities, and contexts, with significant false positive and false negative rates, making them insufficient as a basis for legal compliance. The rules require synthetic content to carry permanent metadata but do not reference open standards such as C2PA, JPEG Trust, or ISO 22144, and each platform's self-built solutions prevent provenance data from flowing across platforms and borders. The authors compare China's September 2025 labeling measures with the GB 45438-2025 standard, the EU AI Act's draft Code of Practice on provenance and transparency, and California's AI transparency bill, advocating that provenance should be interoperable, cryptographically signed, and privacy-preserving, with obligations covering developers, deployers, and intermediaries.