A recent study of 2,000 U.S. and U.K. residents found that the vast majority of participants couldn’t distinguish between real content and deepfake images and video. In research conducted by the biometric identity verification provider iProov, only 0.1% identified all deepfake and real media presented to them, even after they were told some of the media would be fake.
Roughly one in five consumers (22%) had not heard of deepfakes before the study, according to iProov. Age was a factor, with 30% of participants ages 55-64 and 39% of those ages 65 or older saying they never heard of deepfakes.
Deepfake videos proved more challenging to identify than deepfake images, with participants 36% less likely to correctly identify a synthetic video compared to a synthetic image. Participants were “overly confident” in their deepfake detection skills at over 60%, regardless of whether their answers were correct. Young adults ages 18-34 were especially confident despite their inability to spot many deepfakes.
