New research has revealed that almost three out of four UK residents have no idea about the threat imposed by deepfake videos.
iProov, the online biometric authentication company, had based the research on a survey of 2,000 people in the UK. The researchers found that 72% had never heard about deepfakes, videos where technology is used to superimpose someone’s face on another person’s body in an extremely realistic way. Moreover, 70% did not think they would be able to tell a deepfake video apart from a real one.
The technology came into the spotlight when it was used to swap the faces of pornographic performers with those of famous actresses. Star Wars actress Daisy Ridley, Avengers star Scarlett Johansson and singer Taylor Swift were some of the celebrities who have affected by the technology.
Deepfakes have also been used to misrepresent politicians, notably the Argentine president Mauricio Macri and the United States House of Representative speaker Nancy Pelosi.
However, there is a concern that the deepfake technology can also be used for fraud. In fact, once the people polled by iProov heard about the technology, 42% said that they were worried about how it could be used for identity theft.
