Deepfakes and impersonation

Google is expanding AI content detection to Chrome and Search so users can check whether images were made or altered with AI. The updates cover SynthID, the invisible watermarking technology developed by Google DeepMind, and content carrying C2PA content credentials. Verification for SynthID-marked images is rolling out to Search features, including Google Lens, starting with the announcement at Google I/O.

Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, will update its codes of practice to require online service providers to detect and remove intimate image abuse, including AI-generated deepfakes. The change follows a rise in revenge porn and deepfakes targeting women and girls, and a wave in January when Grok AI was widely used to create sexualised videos of women in bikinis.

South Korea's local elections next month will serve as a test of how effective regulations can be at curbing the spread of deepfakes. The source frames the vote as a real-world trial of whether such laws work.

YouTube is expanding its AI likeness detection program to all users over 18. The feature uses a selfie-style face scan to search the platform for lookalikes and alerts the user when it finds a match. The user can then request removal of the content.

A newsletter collects several tech stories. Adult content creators say AI systems train on their work, clone their likenesses, and generate explicit content they never agreed to make. Separately, generative AI chatbots such as Gemini have surfaced people's real phone numbers, and experts believe the leaks stem from personally identifiable information in AI training data.

Jennifer, a psychotherapist who appears under a pseudonym, found that a facial recognition search of her new headshot returned an old adult video of hers with another person's face swapped onto her body. The article reports that porn performers' bodies are used as training data for AI-generated nudes and that their likenesses are re-created without consent, threatening their livelihoods.

A finance director at a Singapore multinational authorized a $499,000 transfer during a Zoom call where every participant was AI-generated, after the attacker had mapped the org chart and the wire approval workflow. The article says the same method stole $25.6 million from Arup in early 2024, and that voice deepfake incidents rose 680% year-over-year in 2025, with deepfake fraud losses exceeding $200 million in the first four months of 2025.

YouTube is expanding its likeness detection feature to Hollywood celebrities. The tool searches the platform for AI deepfake content and flags it for enrolled public figures, who can track such videos or request removal, with takedowns judged against YouTube's privacy policy. Not every request will be approved.

According to NBC News, Apple privately threatened to remove Elon Musk's AI app Grok from the App Store in January over its failure to curb nonconsensual sexual deepfakes spreading on X. In a letter to US senators, Apple said it contacted the teams behind X and Grok and demanded that they create a plan to improve content moderation.

Deepfake audio and video have become cheap and convincing enough to fool employees and executives. A 2025 Gartner survey found that 43% of cybersecurity leaders had experienced at least one audio deepfake and 37% had experienced video deepfakes in the past year. The article also describes a case at Arup where a roughly $25 million transfer followed a video call with AI-simulated executives.

WIRED and Indicator reviewed publicly reported cases and found sexualized deepfakes created with generative AI targeting schoolchildren in at least 28 countries since 2023. The review counts about 90 schools and more than 600 pupils affected, with most alleged perpetrators teenage boys using "nudify" apps on images taken from social media. The authors note the true scale is likely much higher, since many incidents are never publicly reported.

YouTube is rolling out an AI feature in Shorts that lets creators make a digital version of themselves, called an avatar. The avatar can be inserted into existing Shorts or used to generate new ones. YouTube says avatars will "look and sound like you" and presents them as a safer and more secure way to use AI.

AI researchers report that online content creators are fabricating people, including sexualized images of women in camouflage, and placing them in military contexts. The images draw large audiences and can earn money or act as propaganda, including idealized portrayals of political figures such as Donald Trump, even when viewers know they are not real.

Baltimore became the first major U.S. city to sue xAI over deepfake sexual images generated by Grok. The complaint, filed March 24 in a circuit court, accuses xAI of violating city consumer protection laws through deceptive and unfair marketing of Grok and X as generally safe, citing a "put her in a bikini" trend and a post by Elon Musk that the city says endorsed nudifying edits of real people. The city seeks statutory penalties and injunctive relief.

GenAI has made social engineering and phishing faster and more convincing, enabling hyper-personalized messages, cloned executive voices and realistic video impersonations. Deepfake incidents have already caused financial loss and operational disruption for organizations, and real-time face and voice cloning makes scams on collaboration platforms harder to spot. Check Point Services has expanded its training portfolio in response.

YouTube is expanding its likeness detection technology, which identifies AI-generated deepfakes, to a pilot group of government officials, political candidates, and journalists. Pilot members can request removal of detected content they believe violates YouTube policy, and YouTube will evaluate each request against its privacy policy guidelines, protecting parody and political critique.

YouTube is expanding its likeness detection feature, which scans for AI-generated deepfakes of a person's face and works like Content ID, to a pilot group of journalists, government officials and political candidates starting Tuesday. The feature is already available to millions of content creators, and YouTube declined to say who is in the pilot group.

Meta's Oversight Board says the company's methods for identifying deepfakes are "not robust or comprehensive enough" for fast-spreading misinformation during armed conflicts such as the Iran war. The Board is calling on Meta to overhaul how it surfaces and labels AI-generated content across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. The call follows an investigation into a fake AI video of alleged building damage in Israel shared on Meta's platforms last year.