Category Archives: Deepfake

Spain sentences 15 schoolchildren over AI-generated naked images

Posted on by

Teenagers each given a year’s probation after creating and spreading faked images of female classmates in south-west Spain

A court in south-west Spain has sentenced 15 schoolchildren to a year’s probation for creating and spreading AI-generated images of their female peers in a case that prompted a debate on the harmful and abusive uses of deepfake technology.

Police began investigating the matter last year after parents in the Extremaduran town of Almendralejo reported that faked naked pictures of their daughters were being circulated on WhatsApp groups.

Continue reading...

US cites AI deepfakes as reason to keep Biden recording with Robert Hur secret

Posted on by

DoJ filing says president’s interview with special counsel about handling of classified documents could be ‘improperly altered’

The US Department of Justice is making a novel legal argument to keep a recording of an interview with Joe Biden from becoming public. In a filing late last week, the bureau cited the risk of AI-generated deepfakes as one of the reasons it refuses to release audio of the president’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur. The conversation about Biden’s handling of classified documents is a source of heated political contention, with Republicans pushing for release of the recordings and the White House moving to block them.

The justice department’s filing, which it released late on Friday night, argues that the recording should not be released on a variety of grounds including privacy interests and executive privilege. One section of the filing, however, is specifically dedicated to the threat of deepfakes and disinformation, stating that there is substantial risk people could maliciously manipulate the audio if it were to be made public.

Continue reading...

India opposition social media chief arrested over doctored video

Posted on by

Congress party’s Arun Reddy held over fake video of interior minister Amit Shah

Indian police have said they have arrested the social media chief of the country’s main opposition party over a doctored video widely shared during the ongoing national election.

Arun Reddy of the Congress party was detained late on Friday in connection with the edited footage, which falsely shows India’s powerful interior minister, Amit Shah, vowing in a campaign speech to end affirmative action policies for millions of poor and low-caste Indians.

Continue reading...

Australian government pledges almost $1bn to help women leave violent relationships

Posted on by

‘Leaving violence payment’ of $5,000 will help women escape abusive relationships with money for services, risk assessments and safety planning

Anthony Albanese has announced $925m to help victims of violence leave abusive relationships and a ban on deepfake pornography as new measures to combat violence against women.

After a national cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the prime minister announced the “leaving violence payment” of $5,000 to help meet the costs of leaving a relationship along with services, risk assessments and safety planning.

Continue reading...

Can AI image generators be policed to prevent explicit deepfakes of children?

Posted on by

As one of the largest ‘training’ datasets has been found to contain child sexual abuse material, can bans on creating such imagery be feasible?

Child abusers are creating AI-generated “deepfakes” of their targets in order to blackmail them into filming their own abuse, beginning a cycle of sextortion that can last for years.

Creating simulated child abuse imagery is illegal in the UK, and Labour and the Conservatives have aligned on the desire to ban all explicit AI-generated images of real people.

Continue reading...

Creating sexually explicit deepfake images to be made offence in UK

Posted on by

Offenders could face jail if image is widely shared under proposed amendment to criminal justice bill

Creating a sexually explicit “deepfake” image is to be made an offence under a new law, the Ministry of Justice has announced.

Under the legislation, anyone who creates such an image without consent will face a criminal record and an unlimited fine. They could also face jail if the image is shared more widely.

Continue reading...

Nearly 4,000 celebrities found to be victims of deepfake pornography

Posted on by

Channel 4 News finds 255 British people including its presenter Cathy Newman to have been doctored into explicit images

More than 250 British celebrities are among the thousands of famous people who are victims of deepfake pornography, an investigation has found.

A Channel 4 News analysis of the five most visited deepfake websites found almost 4,000 famous individuals were listed, of whom 255 were British.

Continue reading...

Revealed: the names linked to ClothOff, the deepfake pornography app

Posted on by

Exclusive: Guardian investigation for podcast series Black Box reveals names connected to app that generated nonconsensual images of underage girls around the world

The first Miriam al-Adib learned of the pictures was when she returned home from a business trip. “Mum,” said her daughter. “I want to show you something.”

The girl, 14, opened her phone to show an explicit image of herself. “It’s a shock when you see it,” said Adib, a gynaecologist in the southern Spanish town of Almendralejo and a mother of four daughters. “The image is completely realistic … If I didn’t know my daughter’s body, I would have thought that image was real.”

Continue reading...

Iran-backed hackers interrupt UAE TV streaming services with deepfake news

Posted on by

Microsoft analysts cite reports saying disruption by group known as Cotton Sandstorm also reached audiences in UK and Canada

Iranian state-backed hackers interrupted TV streaming services in the United Arab Emirates to broadcast a deepfake newsreader delivering a report on the war in Gaza, according to analysts at Microsoft.

The tech company said a hacking operation run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, a key branch of the Iranian armed forces, had disrupted streaming platforms in the UAE with an AI-generated news broadcast branded “For Humanity”.

Continue reading...

Company worker in Hong Kong pays out £20m in deepfake video call scam

Posted on by

Police investigate after employee says she was tricked into sending money to fraudsters posing as senior officers at her firm

Hong Kong police have launched an investigation after an employee at an unnamed company claimed she was duped into paying HK$200m (£20m) of her firm’s money to fraudsters in a deepfake video conference call.

The Hong Kong police force said it had received a report from a worker that she had been tricked into transferring the money by someone “posing as senior officers of the company”.

Continue reading...

Disinformation attacks targeted voters, media and LGBTQ+ groups, EU report finds

Posted on by

Digital ‘warfare’ included manipulating voices and images of celebrities such as Margot Robbie and Nicolas Cage

Disinformation attacks in 2023 targeted European democracy but also media outlets and LGBTQ+ organisations, and involved the malicious manipulation of the images and voices of celebrities such as Margot Robbie and Nicolas Cage, an EU report has concluded.

The research, the EU’s second annual disinformation report, lifts the lid on digital weaponry deployed to undermine Ukraine, but also to spread fake news during elections in Poland and Spain.

Continue reading...

Dick Smith criticises Facebook after scammers circulate deepfake video ad

Posted on by

Businessman warns people to ‘never ever’ purchase from advertisers on Facebook and Instagram after ‘totally fraudulent’ video appears

Australian businessman Dick Smith has urged people to stop buying anything from Facebook or Instagram after a deepfake video of him spruiking an investment opportunity was circulated by scammers online.

Smith posted a message on his personal website on Monday afternoon about the video, which was designed to appear like a segment on A Current Affair, featuring host Ally Langdon apparently interviewing him, Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...