Generative AI has introduced new challenges in detecting and prosecuting child sexual abuse material online. Discuss the adequacy of India's existing legal framework (POCSO Act, IT Act) to address this.

In Just Rights for Children Alliance v. S. Harish (2024), the Supreme Court replaced the term "child pornography" with Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Material (CSEAM), stressing that such content records real abuse [3]. Generative AI now manufactures such imagery without a camera — recently alleged in AI-generated advertisements on Meta's platforms — testing a legal architecture designed for recorded offences.

New challenges from generative AI

• Detection: enforcement relies on matching known material; freshly synthesised images defeat such matching, and volume scales at near-zero cost.
• Evidence and prosecution: with no identifiable victim, age determination, FIR registration and victim-linked investigation become difficult.
• Distribution: harm now travels through paid advertising and cross-platform links, where ad-review systems, not user-content moderation, are the weak point.

Where the existing framework holds

• IT Act, Section 67B is technology-neutral: it punishes not only publishing/transmitting but also creating text or digital images depicting children in sexually explicit conduct — squarely covering synthetic material [1].
• POCSO Act: Section 15 penalises storage/possession, and the Supreme Court held that viewing CSEAM without deleting or reporting is itself an offence; Section 19 imposes mandatory reporting on any person, including intermediaries [2][3].
• IT Rules, 2021 impose due-diligence duties, with safe harbour under Section 79 forfeited on non-compliance [1][5].
• DPDP Act, 2023 restricts tracking and targeted advertising directed at children [6].
• NCPCR, with civil-court powers of inquiry and summons under the CPCR Act, 2005, monitors POCSO implementation and can act suo motu [4].

Persisting gaps: no explicit statutory recognition of AI-generated CSEAM as a distinct offence, no mandated proactive screening of advertisement inventory, no single national reporting clearing-house, and overlapping action by NCPCR, MeitY and NHRC without a coordination protocol.

India's framework is therefore substantively adequate in principle but under-equipped in execution. Clarifying synthetic CSEAM in statute, mandating AI-specific ad audits, and creating a unified reporting mechanism would align platform accountability with the child's right to dignity under Article 21 and SDG 16.2.