AI Scam Alert! How to spot fake video calls, deepfake technology to stay safe

Yes! The growing technology, especially artificial intelligence, has made it more convincing for fraudsters to dupe innocent people’s money globally. A similar incident took place in northern China where a man found himself the victim of a AI-driven video call scam involving deepfake technology. 

With the help of AI-powered face-swapping technology, the scammer posed as the victim’s close friend during a video call and persuaded him to transfer an amount of 4.3 million yuan (over ₹5 crore). The incident took place in Baotou, China. The victim realized that he has been duped when his real friend expressed ignorance about the call. 

Local police, in an official statement, revealed that they had managed to recover most of the stolen money and working diligently to trace the remaining amount, according to a report published by Reuters. 

Following the growing threat of AI-driven scams, China has been actively tightening its scrutiny of such technology and implemented new rules in January this year to provide legal protection for victims. 

Hence, the question arises of how to spot a fake video call. There are some tricks to skirt these issues like fake contact number, fake names, unusual background, etc. Take a look at the small signs regarding a fake video call, 

1) Video quality: If you observe, the quality of the fake video is usually poor. Always check for watermarks or other signs as the fake video comes from an online source. 

2) Contact information: One should check if the person calling you on your contact list or does the name mean anything to you. Also, you need to be sure of the contact name appearing on the video call and the contact information. 

3) Video sizing: You need to resize the video to fit the webcam window, if a person is doing a fake video call. This action can distort the video proportions and it looks out of shape. 

In the light of uptick in AI-based scams in India, individuals are advised to remain vigilant and exercise caution during video or even voice calls. A recent study indicated that India is the country with the highest number of victims, with 83% of Indians losing their money in such fraudulent activities.

Over the past few years, deepfake technology has become a problem for people. It is a form of artificial intelligence technology that creates realistic but fake videos. It can be applied to video or image manipulation. 

The process of deepfake technology begins with collecting visual and audio data about the target individual through publicly available information such as social media appearances. Then, the data is used to train a deep learning model to mimic the target person of the deepfake. 

Updated: 02 Jun 2023, 10:06 AM IST