Europe Initiates Efforts to Cope with New, Annoying Challenge
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Europol, the European police agency, recommends that EU law enforcement authorities should make ‘significant investments’ into developing new screening technologies that could help to detect the malicious use of deepfakes.
Deepfake technology involves the creation of synthetic media, generally video material, using artificial intelligence and machine learning tools which allow for an individual’s facial expressions and speech to be doctored to appear real. Such falsified videos were produced of German Chancellor Merkel, former US President Obama, etc.
The purpose of politically-motivated deepfake videos is to stoke social unrest and political polarisation between online users, by way of delivering falsified messages from well-known leaders. Europol expects the means of those producing to become more technologically advanced in the future.
A recent report published by Europol examines the threat landscape for artificial intelligence technologies. The report states that “deepfakes can, in this regard, become a significant challenge to the current forensic audio-visual analysis and authentication techniques employed by industries, competent authorities, media professionals, and civil society.”
In order to address the future challenges posed by the development of more sophisticated deepfake tools, the report recommends law enforcement agencies to establish more advanced means of detecting next-generation doctored video and audio content.
“In order to optimise the efforts and address the current gaps, the development of systems to combat deepfakes should be done in a collaborative manner between industry and end-users from competent authorities.”
In Brussels, the European Commission is putting the final touches to its upcoming Digital Services Act, an ambitious regulatory framework that will introduce new rules in areas ranging from content moderation to online advertising and the transparency of algorithms, according to euractiv.com.
