A Guide to The Risks of Deepfakes in Biometric Authentication Measures  

Biometric verification has become an essential part of our everyday activities, as it offers greater security and convenience. However, the emergence of deepfake technologies has disrupted the credibility of these checks. Deepfakes in biometric authentication pose a significant threat to businesses that affect the trust in security checks. 

According to a recent survey conducted with 1,102 individuals in Indonesia, approximately 57% of respondents showed concerns about deepfakes. Identifying deepfakes is very challenging for security experts since deepfakes convincingly replicate an individual’s facial features for illegal purposes.

This blog provides a detailed assessment of the presence of deepfakes in biometric authentication, and its impact on sectoral operations is provided.              

The Rising Risks of AI-Generated Deepfakes in Facial Biometrics 

Deepfakes are videos, images, and videos generated through artificial intelligence that impersonate the individual’s realistic facial characteristics. In recent years, impersonators have been exploiting facial authentication checks by integrating deepfake measures. 

Deepfakes in biometric authentication involve the process of bypassing identification checks through the manipulation of a legitimate entity’s ID credentials and facial characteristics. These measures result in increased instances of identity theft and data breaches. Furthermore, identity spoofs spread the fake narrative and misinformation about individuals through deepfake measures. This significantly manipulates public opinion and perceptions about the involved entity. 

Additionally, the influence of deepfakes in biometric authentication has also been observed in the dissemination of political disinformation and electoral interference. Political groups use deepfakes to discredit their opponents through the generation of fraudulent content.      

Deepfake Threats Circumvented During Sectoral Biometric Authentication  

The rising inclusion of deepfakes in the industries is threatening the credibility of biometric authentication checks. Some of the major sectoral concerns associated with deepfakes in biometric authentication are briefly discussed below:

• The finance sector is highly vulnerable to the risks of impersonation attacks. By generating a realistic ID, imposters fabricate the financial onboarding operations to facilitate illegal transactional activities, resulting in long-term financial losses. 
• Deepfakes disrupt border control measures that negatively impact the functionality of the government sector’s security checks. 
• Impersonators most commonly exploit the online business landscape by using deepfake measures during remote onboarding and verification checks. These threats deceive the online ID checks, which leads to the fabrication of individual identities.     

Impersonation Concerns Leading to Loss of Trust in AI Deepfake Detection Checks 

Due to the rising risks of deepfakes in biometric authentication checks, the overall public trust and confidence in identity screening checks are reduced. Some of the major credibility risks associated with the deepfakes are discussed below:

• Deepfakes are the primary indicator of identity theft instances. Through facial imitation, the victims experience self-doubts that ultimately result in personal financial losses. 
• The impersonation of customer’s confidential information enables imposters to gain unauthorized access to their credentials. The negative impact of these attacks is greatly observed in the illicit access to government institutions and offices. 
• The integrity of legal decision-making procedures is also affected by the deepfakes in biometric authentication measures.      

Critical Security Measures Optimized During Deepfake Verification 

Although deepfakes are backed by artificial intelligence measures, their accurate identification can be conducted through the integration of effective and credible biometric recognition checks. The facial identification checks that use static data analysis can effectively detect the presence of deepfakes during the screening process. 

Furthermore, the voice-activated security checks help in the thorough investigation of impersonators as they present irregularities in the vocal frequencies. These voice-activated detection checks are harder to beat and bypass. In addition, businesses must stress the integration of fingerprint scanning to accurately identify and screen the presence of deepfakes.     

Role of Effective Biometric Detection in Identifying Deepfakes

In order to boost the overall effectiveness of biometric identity detection, examiners are required to integrate the liveness detection checks during the identity recognition measures. These checks allow ID examiners to conduct face mapping and 3D depth analysis to investigate the discrepancies in user’s facial characteristics. This can either be done actively or passively. 

The Deepfake Detection can be promoted through the incorporation of multimodal biometrics during the screening procedures. Through voice recognition, fingerprint scanning, and facial recognition checks, examiners are able to identify masks and unnatural facial figures effectively during extensive customer screening and authentication operations.     

The Bottom Line

Deepfakes in biometric authentication are becoming very common due to the rise of technological measures. The impersonators exploit advanced technologies to formulate deepfakes and identity masks that manipulate legitimate entities for the sake of supporting fraudulent activities. The consequences of these checks are observed significantly in the financial and law enforcement sectors. 

Hence, an emphasis on the establishment of effective screening checks backed by liveness detection and multi-factor authentication modules is necessary. By doing so, businesses can effectively rectify the presence of impersonators during the onboarding procedures.