PERTANGGUNGJAWABAN PIDANA ATAS KONTEN DEEPFAKE DALAM KUHP NASIONAL

Abstract

The misuse of deepfake technology to imitate a person's face, voice, or actions poses a problem for criminal law, because Indonesia's National Criminal Code (Law Number 1 of 2023), which took effect on 2 January 2026, has no offence that expressly mentions deepfakes. This article asks whether the National Criminal Code can reach the making and spreading of deepfake content, and how criminal liability can be built for individuals and corporations. The study is normative juridical research that uses the statute approach and the conceptual approach. It relies on primary, secondary, and non-legal materials gathered through library research and analysed qualitatively. The results show that deepfakes are covered only in part, and which provision applies depends on the purpose of the conduct: fraud (Article 492), forgery (Article 391), pornography (Article 407), defamation (Article 433), and false news that causes unrest (Articles 263 and 264, as amended by Law Number 1 of 2026). Each of these provisions was drafted with conventional methods in mind, so problems remain around the element of "letter", synthetic content that portrays someone instead of accusing them, the consent of the person portrayed, and negligent sharers. Under the general provisions, individuals are liable if they act intentionally as perpetrators, co-perpetrators, or accessories (Articles 20, 21, and 36), whereas artificial intelligence cannot be a subject of criminal law. Corporations, including platforms and AI service providers, can be held liable under Articles 45 to 48 when the offence is accepted as corporate policy, allowed to happen, or when preventive measures are ignored. Because the principle of legality forbids analogy, an explicit offence on deceptive synthetic content is needed, together with transparency obligations.