#FactCheck- AI-Generated Train Video Falsely Shows Muslims Praying in Japan A video purportedly showing

Introduction

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On June 11, 2026, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) India released one of the most critical Indian government advisories concerning cybersecurity by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the National Cybercrime Threat Analytics Unit (NCTAU) concerning the immediate and escalating threat posed by the weaponization of generative artificial intelligence to forge synthetic biometric identities capable of bypassing the existing facial verification mechanisms in India. This advisory is arguably one of the most explicit Indian government recognitions of the deep-seated threats associated with AI-generated deepfakes in the country’s digital financial infrastructure. As many Indian financial service providers embrace facial recognition and biometric verification systems for customer onboarding and authentications, the myth that biometric traits are in themselves secure is slowly unraveling.

The advisory states that cybercriminals are deploying sophisticated AI tools to forge such credible digital simulacrums that exhibit such a precise similarity of facial expressions, eye movements, eye blinks, head movements, and voice patterns that they are virtually indistinguishable from the originals for identity verification mechanisms. Such a confluence of easy AI technology, mass onboarding of digital identities, and underdeveloped infrastructure to detect these synthetics requires urgent regulatory, institutional, and technological intervention.

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The I4C Advisory: Core Findings and Threat Architecture

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In its advisory, NCTAU describes a complex, multi-step attack chain used by scammers to capture biometric information and perpetrate fraud using everyday social interactions. The attackers typically use social media accounts, chat messengers, online job applications, dating applications, or direct phone calls to reach their targets. These interactions are presented as innocuous, such as for video calls, job interviews, identity checks, or just normal conversation with the intention of recording facial and vocal data.

During these interactions, victims may be asked to perform gestures commonly seen in legitimate video calls, such as look directly at the camera, blink, turn their head, or say specific phrases. However, the perpetrators record this video feed without the victim's knowledge and then use deep learning generative AI technologies to process it. Through methods such as Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and diffusion models, the scammers create photorealistic synthetic duplicates of the target, capable of mirroring all physical and vocal attributes, such as facial expressions, blinking patterns, head movements, and even voice tones.

The advisory explicitly states that these synthetic identities can be used for a variety of fraudulent activities, such as spoofing face authentication systems, circumventing liveness detection checks, successfully completing video KYC, enabling fraudulent account recovery processes, and illegally accessing bank and financial services. NCTAU also cautions that these voice deepfakes may be paired with facial deepfakes in an attempt to undermine multi-modal authentication methods, and the occurrence of related SIM-swap attacks can eliminate the last layer of security in OTP verification and facilitate a complete account compromise.

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The scale of India's Digital Financial Ecosystem

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The scale of I4C's detected threat can be better understood by considering India's entire digital financial landscape. In 2025 India has witnessed over 228 billion UPI transactions, with 21.63 billion in December alone, an annual growth rate of 29% from 2024, and an active user base of over 500 million by the beginning of 2026. Furthermore, total e-KYC transactions by April 2025 have exceeded 2,393 crore, and thus, it can be seen the extent to which these aspects of finance (banking, insurance, and credit) are now conducted via remote digital verification. The transformation, although instrumental in increasing financial inclusion, has, according to some analysts, created an attack surface of historic scale. As hundreds of millions more become financially integrated via the very same channels that now form the country's infrastructure and systems of identity, the threat from identity-based fraud becomes astronomically large. 

Indian government data further illustrates the extent to which such frauds are a growing concern. Cybercrime cases jumped 42% year-on-year to 2.27 million in 2024, resulting in losses amounting to nearly 228.45 billion. Within that, 1.34 million UPI cases, worth 1,087 crore, occurred in FY2024 alone, while cybercrimes in general soared from 260,000 cases in 2021 to nearly 2.8 million by 2025, totaling cybercrime losses of 22,931 crore.

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How Do Deepfakes Defeat Biometric Systems?

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Deepfake fraud, in particular, is extremely difficult to counteract due to the direct attack it poses on the assumptions underlying traditional verification systems. Passive techniques for verifying a live person from a static photo or video existed that primarily looked for similarities in textures, lighting, and geometrical properties or challenged subjects to perform an action in real-time. But the generation of real-time face swapping that contains blinks, head motion, and speaking can now be produced on even cheap machines. Cybercriminals can exploit these by using virtual camera drivers to "inject" the false image feed into the live verification session, nullifying any passive liveness checks. Data from the industry clearly shows the extent of this problem: iProov, a leading authenticator, documented a 7.8-fold rise in injection attacks in 2024; Jumio noted an 88% increase in deepfake-induced fraud in 2025; and voice-deepfake attacks on financial call centres saw a 6.8-fold increase in 2024. 

Gartner had also predicted that 30% of organizations would have lost trust in facial verification alone by 2026, and work by Kubam (2024) confirmed a lack of multi-factor authentication such as cross-validation of biometric, document, and device integrity signals used within KYC platforms. Such fears have been corroborated by FATF's 2025 Horizon Scan, which classified deepfakes as an emerging threat to the AML/CDD framework and digital identity verification.

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Recommendations by I4C

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I4C's advisory goes beyond merely warning about threats and lists actionable recommendations to both institutions and citizens. Banks, NBFCs, fintech companies, and onboarding platforms have been advised to incorporate advanced deepfake and synthetic content detection techniques into their verification flows, given that first-generation liveness checks are not enough. They should employ a multi-modal strategy that considers face features along with the device, network signals, behavioral biometrics, and alignment of face and voice. They also have been advised to make a more robust upgrade of their onboarding and verification platforms, as much of the current remote verification architecture was built in a less sophisticated threat context. This aligns with the KYC Master Direction of the RBI that specifies end-to-end encryption, IP-based access controls, geotagging, and technology platforms and systems are to be upgraded frequently. Citizens are advised by I4C to keep their biometric information secure; be careful of unsolicited video calls and online interviews; keep an eye on transaction-related SMS and emails; and report suspicious instances through the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal and through the telephone number 1930. It is clarified that this advisory aims to create awareness of developing AI-based identity fraud schemes, and it is not a declaration that any specific organization, platform, or service is vulnerable.

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^{The Legislative Dimension: India's Evolving Response to Synthetic Media}

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The problem highlighted by I4C is evolving in a heavily legislated environment, not a legal void. The first-ever legal definition of "synthetic media" in India came into force in the Information Technology Amendment Rules 2026 on February 20, 2026. These rules oblige significant platforms to remove deepfakes and non-consensual intimate media within three hours and two hours, respectively, or lose their safe harbor protection under Section 79 of the IT Act. While the provision focuses on harm stemming from content, this creates a new legal and normative precedent on dealing with AI-induced deception. However, financial frauds facilitated through deepfakes are not content but involve the use of remote identity verification and customer onboarding systems, which require specific technical standards. The overall policy environment when viewed in light of the FATF Horizon Scan, RBI KYC rules, and recent I4C advisory already offers significant scope to define and introduce mandatory deepfake detection and identity assurance standards even before these are explicitly legislated.

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Institutional and Technical Recommendations

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1. For Financial Institutions and Fintech platforms: The existing verification systems (liveness detection) must be replaced with multi-layered deep-fake detection processes, including injection attack detection, behavioral biometrics, cross-modal facial and voice verification, device integrity check, and hardware attestation during onboarding itself.
2. For Regulators: The RBI and Ministry of Home Affairs should work together to release technical standards that specify minimum deepfake-detection requirements for video-KYC and remote onboarding systems in line with FATF digital identity guidance and the upcoming EU AI Act.
3. For researchers and academia: Dedicated studies on deepfake detection performance across varied demographic, linguistic, and regional populations of India should be prioritized. Current models are mostly trained on Western data.
4. For citizens: Face recordings and other biometric information should be treated with the same caution as sensitive financial details. Be wary of unsolicited video calls, remote interviews, or verification requests from unknown people, and report suspicious activities on any account immediately via the National Cybercrime Helpline (1930) or cybercrime.gov.in.

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Conclusion

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The I4C advisory of June 2026 marks a critical recognition that advances in generative AI have fundamentally challenged the reliability of facial biometric authentication. For a country whose digital financial ecosystem relies heavily on remote identity verification, the implications are significant. The integrity of India's financial inclusion framework now depends on rapidly strengthening identity assurance mechanisms. Addressing this threat will require coordinated action by regulators, financial institutions, technology developers, researchers, and citizens to develop robust technical standards, enhance detection capabilities, and build public awareness at a pace matching the evolution of AI-enabled fraud.

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References and Sources

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1. I4C / NCTAU Advisory, June 2026 — National Cybercrime Threat Analytics Unit, Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Advisory on AI-Enabled Deepfake Identity Fraud. Issued 11 June 2026.
2. shuftipro.com/blog/key-takeaways-from-fatf-horizon-scan-report-on-deepfakes
3. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/fraudsters-creating-deepfakes-to-bypass-facial-authentication-i4c/articleshow/131668958.cms
4. hyperverge.co/blog/what-is-a-deepfake
5. iproov.com/reports/threat-intelligence-report-2026
6. arxiv.org/pdf/2601.06241

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Introduction:

Technology has become a vital part of everyone’s life nowadays, it occupies essential activities of a person’s life whether we are working or playing and studying. I would say from education to corporate, technology makes everything easier and simpler to achieve the goals for a particular thing.  Corporate companies are using technology for their day-to-day work and there are many law-based foundations that are publishing blogs and papers for legal awareness, many lawyers use internet technology for promoting themselves which amounts to growth in their work. Some legal work can now be done by machines, which was previously unthinkable. Large disputes frequently have many documents to review. Armies of young lawyers and paralegals are typically assigned to review these documents. This work can be done by a properly trained machine. Machine drafting of documents is also gaining popularity. We’ve also seen systems that can forecast the outcome of a dispute. We are starting to see machines take on many tasks that we once thought was solely the domain of lawyers.

How to expand law firms and the corporate world with the help of technology?

If we talk about how lawyers’ lives will be impacted by technology then I would explain about law students first. Students are the one who is utilizing the technology at its best for their work, tech could be helpful in students’ lives. as law students use SCC online and manupatra, which are used for case laws. And during their law internships, they use it to help their seniors to find appropriate cases for them. and use it as well for their college research work. SCC and manupatra are very big platforms by which we can say if students use technology for their careers, it will impact their law career in the best ways.

A lawyer running a law firm is not a small task, and there are plenty of obstacles to that, such as a lack of tech solutions, failure to fulfil demands, and inability to innovate, these obstacles prevent the growth of some firms. The right legal tech can grow an organization or a law firm and there will be fewer obstacles.

Technology can be proven as a good mechanism to grow the law firm, as everything depends on tech, from court work to corporate. If we talk about covid during 2020, everything shifted towards the virtual world, court hearings switched to online mode due to covid which proved as a bone to the legal system as the case hearings were speedy and there was no physical contact due to that.

Legal automation is also helping law firms to grow in a competitive world. And it has other benefits also like shifting tedious tasks from humans to machines, allowing the lawyer to work on more valuable work. I would say that small firms should also need to embrace automation for competition in the corporate sector. Today, artificial intelligence offers a solution to solve or at least make the access-to-justice issue better and completely transform our traditional legal system.

There was a world-cited author, Richard Susskind, OBE, who talked about the future of law and lawyers and he wrote a book, Online Courts and the Future of Justice. Richard argues that technology is going to bring about a fascinating decade of change in the legal sector and transform our court system. Although automating our old ways of working plays a part in this, even more, critical is that artificial intelligence and technology will help give more individuals access to justice.

The rise of big data has also resulted in rapid identification systems, which allow police officers to quickly see an individual’s criminal history through a simple search.The FBI’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) system matches individuals with their criminal history information using biometrics such as fingerprints, palm prints, iris recognition, and facial recognition. The NGI’s current technologies are constantly being updated, and new ones are being added, to make the NGI the most comprehensive way to gather up-to-date information on the person being examined

During covid, there were e-courts services in courts, and lawyers and judges were taking cases online. After the covid, the use of technology increased in the law field also from litigation to corporate. As technology can also safeguard confidential information between parties and lawyers. There was ODR, (online dispute resolution) happening meetings that were taking place online mode.

File sharing is inevitable in the practice of law. Yet sometimes the most common ways of sharing (think email) are not always the most secure. With the remote office, the boom has come an increased need for alternate file-sharing solutions. There is data encryption to protect data as it is a reliable method to protect confidential data and information.

Conclusion-

Technology has been playing a vital role in the legal industry and has increased the efficiency of legal offices and the productivity of clerical workers. With the advent of legal tech, there is greater transparency between legal firms and clients. Clients know how many fees they must pay and can keep track of the day-to-day progress of the lawyer on their case. Also, there is no doubt that technology, if used correctly, is fast and efficient – more than any human individual. This can prove to be of great assistance to any law firm.  Lawyers of the future will be the ones who create the systems that will solve their client’s problems. These legal professionals will include legal knowledge engineers, legal risk managers, system developers, design thinking experts, and others. These people will use technology to create new ways of solving legal problems. In many ways, the legal sector is experiencing the same digitization that other industries have, and because it is so document-intensive, it is actually an industry that stands to benefit greatly from what technology has to offer.

Australia is set to make its most significant reform to online safety laws since the Online Safety Act 2021. On 8 September 2026, the government published a draft of the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026. This would shift the focus of the online safety regime from responding to harmful content to requiring platforms to take steps to prevent foreseeable harms. Consultation closed on 22 September 2026, and the government has signalled its intent to bring legislation to parliament this year. It should be noted that this is a draft document, and there may be changes before any law is made.

What the Bill Proposes

At its core is a single statutory duty: any person responsible for an online service must ensure, “so far as is reasonably practicable”, a safe online environment. The wording is borrowed from work health and safety law, a parallel the Rickard Review itself drew when recommending the duty. The bill would replace the Basic Online Safety Expectations and the industry codes and standards that currently govern harmful content, following a 12-month transition after Royal Assent.

Who Is Covered

The reach is deliberately wide. The duty applies to nine categories of “online service”: internet carriage services, social media, messaging services, designated internet services (websites and platforms), hosting services, search engines, app stores, equipment suppliers, and a new category for AI generation tools such as chatbots and image generators. It attaches both to the provider and to anyone in a position to exercise day-to-day control, so parent companies and subsidiaries could be caught. The minister may exempt low-risk services, and lawful private communications between consenting adults are excluded.

The “Reasonably Practicable” Test

Whether a provider has done enough is judged by weighing the likelihood and degree of harm, what the provider knows or ought reasonably to know, the availability and cost of safety measures, and the privacy impact of those measures. The privacy limb is notable: measures such as age assurance or AI moderation must not intrude on privacy in a way that is “grossly disproportionate” to the risk. Liability is systems-based, meaning a provider is judged on whether it maintains appropriate systems and processes, not on every individual piece of harmful content that slips through.

Three Tiers of Protection

The “safe online environment” is defined in three layers, each more demanding than the last:

• All people in Australia must be protected from seriously harmful material and conduct, including child sexual exploitation material, grooming, terrorism and violent extremism, and content promoting suicide or self-harm.
• Children under 18 must also be protected from material harmful to children, such as pornography, content promoting disordered eating, bullying, and content encouraging hostile attitudes towards women, as well as addictive design features.
• Children under 16 on social media must not be exposed to design features with negative behavioural impacts, regardless of whether they hold an account.

Design Features and “My Feed, My Way”

A distinctive element is the focus on how services are built. The Bill designates five categories of design feature as having negative behavioural impacts: recommender systems, endless feeds, feedback features such as likes and follower counts, time-limited content such as stories, and logged-in versions of these features. The minister could add more. Providers must manage these features appropriately, including by offering “user empowerment tools”. The flagship is “My Feed, My Way”, under which social media users could opt in to algorithmic recommendations or choose to see only content from accounts they follow, with the detail to be set by legislative instrument.

Compliance Obligations

Providers would need to complete a written risk assessment for each service at least annually and before making changes that could give rise to new risks. These assessments would need to be retained for six years and provided to the eSafety Commissioner within 30 days of a request. Additional requirements include transparency reporting, publication of safety information, accessible complaints processes, and, in some cases, an Australian point of contact.

The Bill also includes a number of other reforms, including take-down timeframes for removal notices reducing from 48 to 24 hours from the day after Royal Assent, the power for the Commissioner to direct the removal of 'nudify' apps, the ability to remove reposted material without a new complaint, and approved university researchers being given access to platform data.

Enforcement and Penalties

The Commissioner will have a range of tools available, including the power to issue formal warnings publicly, impose binding remedial directions, and obtain documents and sworn examinations. Civil pecuniary penalties up to 60,000 penalty units may be imposed for failure to comply with obligations, although for the largest platforms this represents a cap well below a hypothetical turnover-based calculation.

Implications

For businesses, the net is wider than just social media. So any website, app, messaging platform, hosting service or AI tool which is accessible in Australia may be subject to assessment. Risk assessments are effectively discoverable enforcement documents. As such they should be prepared with the same degree of rigour and regard for legal privilege as any document likely to come before a regulator. The reforms are also intersecting with the Privacy Act 'tranche two' draft, the Children's Online Privacy Code and the under-16 social media minimum age. So overlaps need to be mapped together. Uncertainty remains around whether compliance with existing codes would meet the new duty, and regulator guidance will be key.

For users, the likely benefits are greater control over algorithmic feeds, faster removal of harmful content and stronger protections for children. For regulators and policymakers, the bill represents a move from content-by-content moderation to regulation of the systems driving and amplifying harm.

Debate and Criticism

The proposal is contested. The Coalition has said it will oppose the Bill in its current form, citing risks to free speech and journalism. The US Government’s consultation submission warned that the Bill could encourage platforms to over-moderate and questioned how “foreseeable harm” would be defined. Academic commentary from Monash University observes that the Bill expressly protects privacy but not freedom of expression, while legal analysis points to broad delegated powers for the minister to expand the harms and services covered. The short consultation window of 18 days has also drawn comment.

Conclusion

The Digital Duty of Care Bill would change online safety in Australia from a complaints-and-takedown model to a proactive, design-focused duty with serious financial consequences. Because it is still an exposure draft, the sensible response is preparation rather than panic: work out whether your services are in scope, review existing safety and risk practices, map overlapping privacy and children’s obligations, and watch for the Bill’s introduction to Parliament.

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