What is deepfake and how does Viafirma tackle it?

As technology keeps advancing, there are new challenges for society and, therefore, for companies. This article analyses and discusses the current boom of deepfake and what we can do to fight against it.

What is deepfake?

By deepfake, we mean those hyper-realistic video montages that have recently been proliferating and spreading across both social media and the Internet.

Deepfake comes from the combination of machine learning and AI (Artificial Intelligence).
A few weeks ago, social media was overrun with montages of old photos using technology developed by Deep Nostalgia.

In a world full of hoaxes and fake news, as deepfake evolves and improves, online trust will be harder to achieve and will become a serious problem for businesses to tackle, if it is not already.

How to fight deepfake?

Another obvious area that can be affected by deepfake is whenever you must digitally identify yourself. That is, when you must verify your identity. For example, video onboarding is a very common example of this. 

Video identification processes are generally equipped with technology that ensures proof of life to prevent any kind of identity theft. This can be through the use of deepfake or any other way.

To fight against forgery, the best option is to carry out processes where the user must verify their identity through documents that are able to identify them, including proof of life. For this, users must provide suitable photographs and videos, which are then processed by powerful algorithms that ensure they are the person they claim to be.

Viafirma and MATI to verify your identity

To fight against deepfake and to offer our clients greater control over the end user’s identity, Viafirma has a new alliance with MATI, a KYC provider specialized in identity verification.  We integrate its full potential in the processes that you have already set up with Viafirma in a quick and easy way.

This new feature allows you to include a video-based on-boarding validation for your customer, requesting proof of life through a video selfie and a picture of your identity document (e.g. passport, ID card or driver’s licence).

Within a few moments, the MATI verification process will send us back the result of the video and image verification so we can automate the process completion or its blocking with Viafirma.