Deepfake technology burst back on the scene at the end of February, following the publication of three deepfake videos of Tom Cruise on TikTok. The videos went viral, amassing over 11 million views, leading many to believe the Hollywood actor had joined the ByteDance-owned social media platform – despite the page being named “deeptomcruise”. The videos were quickly removed, but as the saying goes, this lie had travelled halfway around the world while the truth was still putting on its shoes.
At Digitalis, we have been alerting clients to the threat of deepfake technology for several years. Deepfakes originally resided in the domain of Hollywood film studios, where editors used highly sophisticated technology and skilled individuals to stitch images together. But recently, deepfakes have found their way on to our smartphones through apps that enable users to place an image of their chosen face into a famous film or music video – with increasingly convincing results. Deepfake technology has well and truly arrived in the mainstream.
The potential of deepfakes to cause harm
In our first newsletter of 2021, our Associate Director Celine MacDougall focused on the proliferation of fake news and its impact on individuals, businesses and governments, as well as the methods that can be used to halt its spread. While the focus of fake news has largely been on the spread of written misinformation and disinformation, deepfakes are a new tool in the armoury of those wishing to do harm. In the wrong hands, deepfake technology can cause significant damage – emotionally, commercially and societally.
The implications for the victims – whether individuals, businesses or governments – are huge. While deepfake technology will likely be used as a harmless fun among many Gen Z users, its potential to spread misinformation is of serious concern to us all. In the wrong hands, its ability to be used for corporate fraud, extortion, market manipulation, political unrest and even playground bullying could affect our workplaces, our homes and our family lives.
In February this year, a Texas lawyer accidentally used a filter on Zoom that turned his appearance into that of a cat. While this was comical and relatively harmless, it is plausible that users could find a way to upload their own customisable filters, posing convincingly as someone else during a live video call. As seen from the Tom Cruise videos, deepfakes can replicate voices, faces and mannerisms. It is not too big a leap to see how this technology, in different hands, could potentially enable deepfake creators to hoodwink others into providing sensitive information, for example by posing as a trusted CEO, partner, doctor or even a child.
Protecting yourself against deepfake attacks
Deepfake attacks are still an unknown to many businesses and individuals, and protecting yourself, your family, and your business against them is no easy task. Mitigating against an attack that at once undermines our senses of sight and sound presents multiple challenges for which there is no simple solution.
At this moment in time, there are no widespread technical defences that enable consumers to prove a video’s authenticity. The best form of defence for an organisation is therefore to improve authentication policies and increase awareness of the possibility of a deepfake attack. There is a downside to this approach, though – it can create mistrust within an organisation, as people no longer automatically have faith in the authenticity of the voice at the other end of the phone or the face on their screen.
The potential threat to remote working
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted many of us to turn to remote working, using video conferencing platforms such as Zoom or Teams to work with others across multiple locations. McKinsey’s digital research team recently published a fascinating article titled “How COVID-19 has pushed companies over the technology tipping point – and transformed business forever”, citing our digital adoption of video conferencing as a key driver. But deepfake technology has the ability to undermine this progress: should businesses and individuals not have certainty over the identity of the individual they see before them on their screen (or hear on the phone), the need for increased face-to-face interaction may return.
The fact that technical advances in deepfake technology could be the catalyst for reversing the effect of other technical advances – in video conferencing technology – that have enabled us to work remotely during the pandemic, is a deeply ironic one. It remains to be seen how this threat will play out, and whether improvements in authentication be able to mitigate it for individuals and businesses. As technological advances are made on both sides, it will be interesting to see whether deepfake technology will threaten businesses and individuals on an increasing scale – and whether advances can be made to thwart such attempts.
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We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email webrequests@digitalis.com
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to webrequests@digitalis.com