Reaffirming its commitment to protect the safety and trust of the digital nagriks (digital citizens), the Ministry of Electronics and IT has notified amendments to the Information Technology Rules related to online gaming, and spread of false and misleading information regarding government business.

According to a government statement, the aim of these amendments is to enforce greater due diligence by online gaming and social media intermediaries in respect of online games and fake or false misleading information related to government business.

Elaborating on the new rules at a press conference in New Delhi yesterday, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said, “It is Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s vision and goal that young Indians get every opportunity possible to create startups and innovate for the world.

“Online gaming is certainly a huge opportunity for India. We see the Indian online gaming ecosystem to expand and grow into a multi-billion dollar industry and be an important catalyst to India’s one trillion-dollar digital economy goal by 2025-26,with very clear restrictions on online wagering and betting.”

These amendments have been drafted after holding widespread consultations with multiple stakeholders, including parents, school teachers, academics, students, gamers, gaming industry associations, child rights bodies, etc., media was briefed.

The Ministry of Electronics and IT (Meity) was allocated the matter related to online gaming rules on December 23 last year under the Government of India (Allocation of Business Rules), 1961. The Ministry, within a fortnight, prepared the draft amendments to the IT Rules and uploaded them for consultations on January 2, 2023.

Meetings were held with stakeholders on January 11 and 17, and February 16, 2023, the official statement said.

As per the amended rules, it has been made obligatory on the part of intermediaries to make reasonable effort to not host, publish or share any online game that can cause the user harm, or that has not been verified as a permissible online game by an online gaming self-regulatory body/bodies designated by the federal or the Central Government.

The intermediary will also have to ensure that no advertisement or surrogate advertisement or promotion of an online game that is not a permissible online game is hosted on its platform.

The self-regulatory body will have the authority to inquire and satisfy itself that the online game does not involve wagering on any outcome, that the online gaming intermediary and the game complies with the rules, the requirements under law for being competent to enter into a contract (currently at 18 years), and a framework made by the self-regulatory body regarding safeguards against user harm.

The amended rules also cast additional obligations on online gaming intermediaries in relation to online games involving real money. These include the displaying of a mark of verification by the self-regulatory body on such games; informing their users of the policy for withdrawal or refund of deposit, manner of determination and distribution of winnings, fees and other charges payable; obtaining the customer verification details of the users and not giving credit or enabling financing by third parties to the users.

The amended rules now also make it obligatory on the intermediaries to not publish, share or host fake, false or misleading information in respect of any business of the central government.

These fake, false or misleading information will be identified by the notified Fact Check Unit of the government.