Deepfake Videos – could you spot one?

The Forum emphasises that prevention, understanding threats and appropriate actions, is by far the best approach to keep ourselves safer from frauds and scams. Nowhere is this more true than in the case of ‘deepfake’ videos. Not only because of their ever growing prevalence, but some of the platforms on which they most frequently appear to be beyond the reach of regulators – especially X/Twitter and TikTok.

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Deepfake: A video, that has been digitally manipulated to replace one person’s likeness convincingly with that of another, often used maliciously to show someone doing something that he or she did not do.

Oxford English Dictionary

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Deepfakes are easy to create

The tools to create deepfake videos are very easy to obtain. Here are the top results from a search on Google:

How deepfake videos may be used

Small wonder, therefore, that such videos are proliferating as a favoured method of scammers. Fraudsters use deepfake videos in many ways – to steal identities, impersonate people you know and pose as famous people to sell dodgy products and investments.

In its 2024 identity fraud report, identity verification company Onfido found a 3,000% increase in the use of deepfake attempts at identity fraud in 2023 compared to 2022. Onfido cited growth in the accessibility of cheap online tools, apps and generative AI.

Verification and authentication company iProov also reported an increase in the use of deepfakes in the form of face-swap technology, which is software that allows you to put someone else’s face over your own in a video. It saw these types of attacks grow by over 700% in the second half of 2023, when compared to the first half of the year.

Have a look at the following video – would you identify that it is NOT Morgan Freeman?

Closer to home, here’s an interview with Martin Lewis on ITV’s Good Morning Britain in July 2023:

How aware are the public? Not enough.

Though deepfakes are becoming ever more prevalent, knowledge of the existence of deepfake videos is far from universal.

Research from Santander shows more than half of Britons – 53 per cent – have either not heard of the term deepfake or misunderstood what it meant, with only 17 per cent of consumers confident they could easily identify a deepfake video.

“Generative AI is developing at breakneck speed, and we know it’s ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ we start to see an influx of scams with deepfakes lurking behind them,” said Santander’s head of fraud risk management Chris Ainsley, who features in the deepfake videos. “We already know fraudsters flood social media with fake investment opportunities and bogus love interests, and unfortunately, it’s highly likely that deepfakes will begin to be used to create even more convincing scams of these types.”

Santander’s research states that 36 per cent of Britons have already knowingly watched a deepfake. 28 per cent of respondents reported having seen a deepfake on Facebook, followed by 26 per cent on X (formerly Twitter), 23 per cent on TikTok, and 22 per cent on Instagram.

Spotting and reporting a deepfake video

Many deepfake videos are already hard to identify, and the technology will only get better. But here are some pointers:

Sources: Thames Valley Alerts, Trading Standards, National Technology News, Santander, moneysavingexpert.com