A NUMBER of countries, including Ireland, have important elections taking place this year, and dirty tricks may play a part in some of them.

Political parties and their supporters have always looked for clever ways to discredit opponents, but today’s technology provides unscrupulous operators (domestic and foreign) with tools that would have been the stuff of science fiction just a dozen or so years ago.

If you use social media, expect it to be awash with deepfakery in the months to come.

Deepfakes are generated using machine learning employed in artificial intelligence technology; they can be audio, video or individual images.

For many, deepfakes are a bit of fun: perhaps you’ve giggled at the fake photos of Donald Trump in an orange prison jumpsuit. However, it was no joke for the Hong Kong branch of a multinational company when an employee was tricked into transferring more than $25million following video calls that turned out to be deepfakes.

Spotting a deepfake

There’s no guaranteed way to spot a good deep fake, but most scams are not top quality. They’re usually quite cheaply done, unless you are a high value individual and it’s worth investing significantly in a targeted scam.

When trying to spot a deepfake, there are aspects of the human body that it struggles with more than others: eyes; hair; teeth; facial expressions, especially emotion; body posture and........

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