Martin Lewis has warned fans to be on the lookout for a "frightening" and "convincing" new scam that saw fraudsters use his image and voice in a bid to con people out of cash.
The MoneySavingExpert founder raised the alarm on Twitter on Thursday evening, after he was alerted to a video that used deepfake technology to create a video which appeared to show him endorsing a scam business. Originally posted on Facebook, the short clip had used AI to create a fake interview using Martin's face and voice in order to trick viewers into thinking that the business was trustworthy, and encourage them to hand their money over.
Sharing the fake clip with his Twitter followers, Martin wrote: "WARNING. THIS IS A SCAM BY CRIMINALS TRYING TO STEAL MONEY. This is frightening, it's the first deep fake video scam I've seen with me in it."
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He added: "Govt & regulators must step up to stop big tech publishing such dangerous fakes. People'll lose money and it'll ruin lives." Many of Martin's followers agreed that the video was "worrying", "scary" and "very convincing".
The scam was later covered on ITV's Good Morning Britain, with Martin appearing on the show on Friday morning to share his reaction to seeing his likeness used in the fake video. "Gosh, Martin, I mean that is terrifying, isn't it? It looks like you, it sounds like you," host Kate Garraway said.
"It's an absolutely terrifying development," Martin agreed. "This is still only the early stages of this technology, and they are only going to get better."
The money expert went on to say that he was "viscerally angry" that scammers had used him to trick unsuspecting people into losing their money. Mentioning the Government's Online Safety Bill, Martin added: "We still have an absolute Wild West on social media and other big tech advertising platforms that allows scammers to get away with impunity.
"What I want everybody watching to remember: every time you see one of those adverts, one of the big tech firms is being paid to promote that advert. These destroy vulnerable people's - and many non-vulnerable people's - lives. Once you get scammed, the impact on your mental health and self-esteem is huge."
Although deepfakes are being increasingly sophisticated and can be hard to spot, security and anti-virus experts at Norton have issued a list of 15 things to look out for to help you spot that a video may have been created using AI:
- Unnatural eye movement. Eye movements that do not look natural — or a lack of eye movement, such as an absence of blinking — are huge red flags. It’s challenging to replicate the act of blinking in a way that looks natural. It’s also challenging to replicate a real person’s eye movements. That’s because someone’s eyes usually follow the person they’re talking to.
- Unnatural facial expressions. When something doesn’t look right about a face, it could signal facial morphing. This occurs when one image has been stitched over another.
- Awkward facial-feature positioning. If someone’s face is pointing one way and their nose is pointing another way, you should be sceptical about the video’s authenticity.
- A lack of emotion. You also can spot what is known as “facial morphing” or image stitches if someone’s face doesn’t seem to exhibit the emotion that should go along with what they’re supposedly saying.
- Awkward-looking body or posture. Another sign is if a person’s body shape doesn’t look natural, or there is awkward or inconsistent positioning of head and body. This may be one of the easier inconsistencies to spot, because deepfake technology usually focuses on facial features rather than the whole body.
- Unnatural body movement or body shape. If someone looks distorted or off when they turn to the side or move their head, or their movements are jerky and disjointed from one frame to the next, you should suspect the video is fake.
- Unnatural colouring. Abnormal skin tone, discoloration, weird lighting, and misplaced shadows are all signs that what you’re seeing is likely fake.
- Hair that doesn’t look real. You won’t see frizzy or flyaway hair. Why? Fake images won’t be able to generate these individual characteristics.
- Teeth that don’t look real. Algorithms may not be able to generate individual teeth, so an absence of outlines of individual teeth could be a clue.
- Blurring or misalignment. If the edges of images are blurry or visuals are misalign — for example, where someone’s face and neck meet their body — you’ll know that something is amiss.
- Inconsistent noise or audio. Deepfake creators usually spend more time on the video images rather than the audio. The result can be poor lip-syncing, robotic- sounding voices, strange word pronunciation, digital background noise, or even the absence of audio.
- Images that look unnatural when slowed down. If you watch a video on a screen that’s larger than your smartphone or have video-editing software that can slow down a video’s playback, you can zoom in and examine images more closely. Zooming in on lips, for example, will help you see if they’re really talking or if it’s bad lip-syncing.
- Hashtag discrepancies. There’s a cryptographic algorithm that helps video creators show that their videos are authentic. The algorithm is used to insert hashtags at certain places throughout a video. If the hashtags change, then you should suspect video manipulation.
- Digital fingerprints. Blockchain technology can also create a digital fingerprint for videos. While not fool-proof, this blockchain-based verification can help establish a video’s authenticity. Here’s how it works. When a video is created, the content is registered to a ledger that can’t be changed. This technology can help prove the authenticity of a video.
- Reverse image searches. A search for an original image, or a reverse image search with the help of a computer, can unearth similar videos online to help determine if an image, audio, or video has been altered in any way. While reverse video search technology is not publicly available yet, investing in a tool like this could be helpful.
