The new campaign by Lisa Townsend is called Question EVERYTHING.
The video shows a deepfake of the Commissioner promoting a new financial scheme open to every Surrey resident.
It entices users to find out how they could ‘secure money in their bank accounts’ by confirming a number of personal online banking details.
Ms Townsend says; “I wanted to create the deepfake video to show how easy it is for fraudsters to convincingly impersonate somebody.
Astonishingly, the fake version of me was primarily generated from a series of still images that were available in the public domain.”
Fraud accounts for more than 1 in 3 of all crimes, according to The Crime Survey for England and Wales.
Lisa said: “Artificial intelligence is becoming more sophisticated every day and whilst it can no doubt bring huge benefits to the way we work and live – it is also being exploited by criminals looking to target people for profit.
“I wanted to create the deepfake video to show how easy it is for fraudsters to convincingly impersonate somebody, particularly those in the public eye. Astonishingly, the fake version of me was primarily generated from a series of still images that were available in the public domain.
“Only three seconds of audio is required to clone a person’s voice to be manipulated and say whatever a criminal wants – the results are frightening.
“At this time of year with Black Friday sales and Christmas fast approaching, I am urging everyone who watches content online, scrolls through social media posts, receives unexpected phone calls, and unsolicited emails to pause and ‘Question EVERYTHING’ that they are watching, reading or hearing. AI has made the scammers’ space into a fraudsters’ paradise”.
