UK Home Secretary James Cleverly has warned that criminals and hostile state actors could hijack Britain’s democratic process using ai-generated deepfakes to mislead voters. In remarks ahead of meetings with major tech companies, Cleverly highlighted the rapid advancement of ai technology and its potential global impact on elections. He warned that malign actors working on behalf of nations like Russia and Iran could generate thousands of highly realistic deepfake images and videos to disrupt the democratic process.
Cleverly told a newspaper, “Increasingly today the performance of ideas and policies takes place in the ever-changing and expanding digital sphere.” He continued, “The era of deepfake and ai-generated content to mislead and disrupt is already in play.” The Home Secretary plans to urge collective action from tech giants like Google, Meta, Apple, and YouTube to implement “rules, transparency, and safeguards” to protect democracy from deepfake disinformation.
These warnings come after a series of deepfake audios imitating prominent Labour leader Keir Starmer and London Mayor Sadiq Khan circulated contact last year. Fake BBC News videos purporting to examine Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s finances have also surfaced.
The tech meetings follow a recent pact signed by major ai companies like Adobe, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft during the Munich Security Conference to take “reasonable precautions” against disruptions caused by deepfake content during elections worldwide. As concerns over the proliferation of deepfakes continue to grow, the world must confront the challenges they pose in shaping public discourse and potentially influencing electoral outcomes.
