Deepfaking

🚀 The quick version: Artificial intelligence is an exciting new technology with many potential positive applications for our future. That said, there is a scary trend increasing around one attribute of AI that all parents need to be aware of. This trend is deepfakes.

A deepfake is an increasingly common type of video or audio content created with artificial intelligence that depicts false events that are increasingly harder to discern as fake. The FBI is now warning people that they are seeing a large number of these cases.

Whether it is emailing you fishy content from what appears to be a friendly source, calling you with a family member’s voice, or even attempting to convince you that they are kidnapping your child, deep fakes are starting to pop up everywhere.

Probably the most famous case was that of Jennifer DeStefano and her family. She received a call from kidnappers demanding ransom while playing what sounded exactly like her daughter’s voice on the other end of the line. Turns out her daughter was fine and the kidnappers deepfaked Jennifer using AI.

It doesn’t take much for a scammer to use AI against you. They may just need a social media profile, some basic location data, or just a few second recording of a family member’s voice to try to fool you.

👪 How it affects your family: We expect to continue hearing more and more about these types of incidents in the future as regulation is always slow to catch up and the technology continues to evolve at a very fast pace.

To prepare, here are things you and your family can do today to guard against a potential deepfake:

Create a family safe word. If someone calls and says they’ve kidnapped your child or you hear what sounds like your child’s voice on the other end of the phone, you can ask for the family safe word as a way to help determine if it is real or not.

Talk to your kids about social media. Discuss how what they post can attract the wrong kind of attention. Talk to them about being especially careful posting when they are away as it gives a scammers an opening to plausibly convince you a kidnapping is taking place.

Account privacy = better. Whenever possible make your accounts private or utilize privacy features to keep your information from getting into the wrong hands. Also we would monitor the kids accounts and run frequent searches for personal and family member information online.

Be wary of unexpected phone calls. Even from people you know, as caller ID numbers can be faked. Also be on high alert if something sounds funny or you get an unusual information request.