Deepfake2

Yet again my attention has been drawn towards the deepfake videos. The amateurish ones are easy to spot. Either because the image is blurry around the edges or because the sound is iffy and so the overall feel and look of the video is dodgy and unnatural.

The serious stuff is where it gets - well serious - not least because they are created with neural networks, requiring digital forensics or special machines to detect these videos. This intensifies the issue of how to detect the fake video then, or even if someone is a victim of this how do they prove that it indeed is a fake video? 

Unfortunately there has in the past few years even a rise in the deepfake apps enabling people with reasonable tech skills to create deepfake videos. Another such app is Faceswap and as the name suggests the face can be swapped from one person onto another.  These tools are marketed as fun and entertaining way of spending time. They seem to forget the fact that they perpetrate infringements of other peoples IP/GDPR! And for the malicious people who’s intention is harmful the outcome can be devastating. 

Because these apps exist it becomes easier and easier to create very realistic videos which in turn increases the level of risk as well. Do take care to embed code into your images and video. 

The law surrounding the deepfake videos is difficult to point to in a clear and concise way meaning that the ownership of the image can be questioned. And in this country, the UK, if an image is in the public domain then it becomes more difficult to fight off infringers legally. 

There are also other far more serious matters that I am not going into in this article. The main thing is that I want you all, my community, to be aware of this so that you can take precautions and not just rely on others. 

To combat the undertow of this type of videos a few things are required such as investment and serious ongoing effort from amongst others tech companies so that we will experience a change in this field. Furthermore the tech companies have to remove these options from their sites/platforms and such so that this becomes the number one priority. Alongside this initiative they, the tech companies, must keep hold of the perpetrators accounts and close those down in an effort to hold them accountable and give for instance life time ban from ever using their services. 

Things like that are necessary when we are determined to put a stop to this kind of infringement from the legal perspective, letting the tech companies wash their hands of responsibility isn’t the way forward. They need to be part of this initiative and set rules for what can be shared on their platforms. 

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