Deepfakes: The Implications For Business

Tim Ryan, Partner and Head of Technology and Kelsey Farish, Solicitor, look at deepfake, a nascent technology which poses particular dangers to insurance companies. Deepfakes could potentially be used by unscrupulous claimants to 'prove' liability of an insured defendant.

Earlier this year, in his Worldwide Threat Assessment address to the US senate, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coates listed two threats as more pressing than any other: cyber-attacks and online influence operations. Deepfake is a rising, relatively new, manifestation of subversive digital activity.

The term 'deepfake', a portmanteau of 'deep learning' and 'fake', is commonly used to refer to any artificial intelligence-based human image synthesis technique. Put simply, it's a way to superimpose one face over another – cheaper and more easily than ever before.