Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe took to social media this week to warn people about “deepfake” videos of himself circulating online.
Moe said his image and voice are being used by scammers to try to convince people to invest in fraudulent schemes.
“I want you to know that I will never endorse or recommend a particular investment,” Moe said. “So if you see a video or an ad of myself doing that, it’s a fake.”
Similar deepfakes have featured other prominent politicians and celebrities, including Prime Minister Mark Carney — triggering a recent warning from the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
“Deepfake videos utilize sophisticated artificial intelligence algorithms to manipulate audio and video to make it appear as though the trusted person is promoting fraudulent investment platforms, merchandise or applications,” the centre said in a June bulletin. “These deepfake videos can be convincing, making it difficult for viewers to identify the video as authentic or not.”
Jeff Horncastle, a spokesman for the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, was a recent guest on Village Media’s new Closer Look podcast. He said deepfake videos are becoming more and more sophisticated, making them much harder to spot.
“It’s really scary," Horncastle said. "A couple years ago — I don’t want to say it was easy — but you could kind of tell where the lip movement didn’t really match the audio in the clips. It’s not so much the case anymore. You can watch a video a few times, and you could say: ‘You know what? If I didn’t know any better, there’s no way of telling whether this video is fake or not.’ That technology is going to continue to evolve, unfortunately.”
You can watch the full interview HERE.
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