Western Australia’s consumer watchdog has issued a warning over an investment scam using a deepfake AI video of the Premier Roger Cook endorsing the scheme, amid concerns many similar scams are “impossible” to discern.<\/p>\n
The pop-up video advertisement on YouTube uses Mr Cook’s likeness and voice, encouraging the public to sign up for the “low investment, high return, real results” opportunity.<\/p>\n
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“Many have asked why this opportunity wasn’t made public earlier,” a deepfake of Mr Cook says into the camera, from behind a dark wooden desk in what is implied to be his office.<\/p>\n
“The truth is simple, we took the time to make sure it’s safe, transparent and genuinely effective for Australians. Now I can confidently say it works.<\/p>\n
“With an initial investment of just $400, users are seeing average returns of around $19,200 in their first month.”<\/p>\n
Missing the red flags<\/p>\n
WA Consumer Protection Commissioner Trish Blake said the way the ad was presented made it potentially more believable.<\/p>\n
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Trish Blake says quick video ads using deepfake technology are even harder to identify as fake. (ABC News: Cason Ho)<\/p>\n
“They’re doing this as a pop-up ad during a show that you might be watching \u2026 you can’t go back and slow it down and really interrogate the video,” she said.<\/p>\n
“That means you’re at much higher risk of missing those normal red flags or warning signs that we tell people about.<\/p>\n
“So when you’ve got time to watch the video slowly, you can see that the lips are not moving in time with the words, and that the hands look a bit unusual.<\/p>\n
“But it’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference, because one, they do put them on these platforms where they play them really quickly [and] give you this sense of urgency like you’ve gotta get in quick, but you also can’t go back and really interrogate the video.”<\/p>\n
An impossible task<\/p>\n
The watchdog was advised of the ad on Friday morning by a member of the public, with the team then able to determine the domain holder, before contacting them and requesting it be removed.<\/p>\n
But Ms Blake said staying on top of these types of scam ads which utilised AI technology had become a never-ending battle.<\/p>\n
Women fleeced in fake Andrew Forrest scam<\/a><\/p>\n A WA woman is caught up in an online investment scam that used a bogus endorsement by mining billionaire Andrew Forrest and created fake ABC News articles to publicise the scam on Facebook and LinkedIn.<\/p>\n “Unfortunately, it’s a bit like a giant game of whack-a-mole \u2026 as soon as we take them down, they pop up again,” she said.<\/p>\n “My advice to everybody for all of these advertisements is to assume they’re a scam until you can prove otherwise. That is the safest way to protect yourself.”<\/p>\n Ms Blake said she believed the technology, which has become cheaper and more sophisticated, was already at the stage that determining fake from real was as good as impossible for the human eye.<\/p>\n