Loan app: Udupi fisherman is latest victim of harassment
Udupi: Deepfakes are being used to spread false information, impersonate individuals, or create explicit or non-consensual content, leading to significant ethical and social implications.
Deepfakes are being used to spread false information, impersonate individuals, or create explicit or non-consensual content, leading to significant ethical and social implications.
A week ago, a 29-year-old fisherman from Padu Tonse village of Udupi taluk received calls from two International numbers, with country code +92, asking him to return a loan he had taken via an app.
The calls were followed by messages on his WhatsApp which showed morphed pictures of him in the nude. These pictures were sent to two of his friends.
The resident of Udupi is the latest victim of harassment by loan app operators. He downloaded the ‘Top Loan’ app and took out a loan of ₹3,500 on July 4.
He repaid ₹1,500 and that’s when he started getting calls threatening him to return forthwith the entire amount with interest.
To force him to agree to their demand, the perpetators used a few pictures of the fisherman from social media to create morphed nude pictures of him.
“These pictures were sent to me. They also accessed my contacts and sent the pictures to two of my friends,” the fisherman said in his complaint filed with the Udupi Cyber Crime Economic and Narcotic Crime (CEN) police station on July 12.
The Udupi police have clues showing that the perpetrators are operating from Chhattisgarh. Efforts are being made to trace them, the police said.
Though the use of morphed nude pictures is the prevailing mode by which loan app operators harass loanees, cyber expert Ananth G. Prabhu said the issue of concern is the threat of Deepfake, a combination of artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning techniques, where fabricated or altered elements are used to create digital content, typically videos, that appear authentic.
Deepfakes are being used to spread false information, impersonate individuals, or create explicit or non-consensual content, leading to significant ethical and social implications.
While efforts were being made to develop tools to detect and mitigate the spread and impact of deep fake content, Prabhu cautioned people against posting of high-resolution pictures and videos on social media, which can be misused.
