Deep Fakes: A Looming Challenge for Privacy, Democracy, and National Security

Professor Robert Chesney, James A. Baker III Chair in the Rule of Law and World Affairs and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Texas School of Law, and Danielle Keats Citron, Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law, Vice President of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, Affiliate Fellow at the Yale Information Society Project, and Affiliate Scholar at the Stanford Center on Internet and Society, have published “Deep Fakes: A Looming Challenge for Privacy, Democracy, and National Security,” 107 California Law Review 1753 (2019); U of Texas Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 692; U of Maryland Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2018-21.  In their scholarly paper, the authors provide a detailed assessment of potential avenues with which to respond to the risks posed by deep-fake technologies.

The abstract states:

Harmful lies are nothing new. But the ability to distort reality has taken an exponential leap forward with “deep fake” technology. This capability makes it possible to create audio and video of real people saying and doing things they never said or did. Machine learning techniques are escalating the technology’s sophistication, making deep fakes ever more realistic and increasingly resistant to detection. Deep-fake technology has characteristics that enable rapid and widespread diffusion, putting it into the hands of both sophisticated and unsophisticated actors. While deep-fake technology will bring with it certain benefits, it also will introduce many harms. The marketplace of ideas already suffers from truth decay as our networked information environment interacts in toxic ways with our cognitive biases. Deep fakes will exacerbate this problem significantly. Individuals and businesses will face novel forms of exploitation, intimidation, and personal sabotage. The risks to our democracy and to national security are profound as well. Our aim is to provide the first in-depth assessment of the causes and consequences of this disruptive technological change, and to explore the existing and potential tools for responding to it. We survey a broad array of responses, including: the role of technological solutions; criminal penalties, civil liability, and regulatory action; military and covert-action responses; economic sanctions; and market developments. We cover the waterfront from immunities to immutable authentication trails, offering recommendations to improve law and policy and anticipating the pitfalls embedded in various solutions.

This and other journal articles written by Professors Chesney and Citron may be downloaded without charge from the Social Science Research Network.

Photo by: Christian Gertenbach on Unsplash