Recto seeks legal framework for ‘deep fakes’

MANILA, Philippines — The government must establish a legal framework that would combat the proliferation of “deep fakes” or artificial intelligence-fabricated video content that could have serious implications on media, the economy and national security, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said over the weekend.

Recto filed a resolution seeking legal mechanisms against deep fakes to strengthen the government’s “implementation of cybercrime and data privacy laws, safeguarding the privacy, information and identity of all Filipinos and protecting the integrity of Philippine social, political, economic and financial institutions.”

He said many people are duped by crudely done images, so “sophisticated videos in which the likeness of a person is seamlessly integrated can have troubling effects on society if used to foment lies.”

“These are manufactured videos which are hard to debunk and disprove as works of fiction because of the sophisticated way they are done,” Recto said in a statement.

 “The social damage malicious deep fakes can create is frightening. They can be used to mimic a president making a public announcement contrary to the public good,” he warned.

He said deep fakes, a phenomenon in which some US lawmakers have filed measures to combat, can create panic, promote scams, or subvert elections “through attack ads in which the content is false but the image and voice of the person talking in it appears to be 100 percent authentic as his.” 

Deep fakes can damage reputations if one jilted lover can manufacture revenge porn, he said.

“To the public, these malicious works will be hard to detect. Their high quality can lead a gullible public to view them as real. When a deep fake is indistinguishable from the real one, most people will not have the faculties to determine if its content corresponds to the truth,” Recto said.

He said a “Malicious Deep Fake Prohibition Act” was introduced in the US Senate, and many states have introduced and even adopted similar legislation.