#FactCheck-Old Maharashtra Video of Dancing Policemen Falsely Linked to West Bengal Election Results

Introduction

In today's digital age protecting your personal information is of utmost importance. The bad actors are constantly on the lookout for ways to misuse your sensitive or personal data. The Aadhaar card is a crucial document that is utilised by all of us for various aspects. It is considered your official government-verified ID and is used for various purposes such as for verification purposes, KYC purposes, and even for financial transactions. Your Aadhaar card is used in so many ways such as flight tickets booked by travel agents, check-in in hotels, verification at educational institutions and more. The bad actors can target and lure the victims by unauthorized access to your Aadhaar data and commit cyber frauds such as identity theft, unauthorized access, and financial fraud. Hence it is significantly important to protect your personal information and Aadhaar card details and prevent the misuse of your personal information.

What is fingerprint cloning?

Cybercrooks have been exploiting the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS). These scams entail cloning individuals' Aadhaar-linked biometrics through silicon fingerprints and unauthorized biometric devices, subsequently siphoning money from their bank accounts. Fingerprint cloning also known as fingerprint spoofing is a technique or a method where an individual tries to replicate someone else's fingerprint for unauthorized use. This is done for various reasons, including gaining unauthorized access to data, unlocking data or committing identity theft. The process of fingerprint cloning includes collection and creation.

The recent case of Aadhaar Card fingerprint cloning in Nawada

Nawada Cyber Police unit has arrested two perpetrators who were engaged in fingerprint cloning fraud.  The criminals are accused of duping consumers of money from their bank accounts by cloning their fingerprints. Among the two perpetrators, one of them runs the Common Service Centre (CSC) whereas the second is a sweeper at the DBGB branch bank. The criminals are accused of duping consumers of money from their bank accounts by cloning their fingerprints. According to the police, an organized gang of cyber criminals had been defrauding the consumers for the last two years with the help of a CSC operator and were embezzling money from the accounts of consumers by cloning their fingerprints and taking Aadhaar numbers. The operator used to collect the Aadhaar number from the consumers by putting their thumb impression on a register. Among these two perpetrators, one was accused of withdrawing more money from the consumer's account and making less payment and sometimes not making the payment after withdrawing the money. Whereas the second perpetrator stole the data of consumers from the DBGB branch bank and prepared their fingerprint clone. During the investigation of a case related to fraud, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Cyber ​​Police conducted raids in Govindpur and Roh police station areas on the basis of technical surveillance and available evidence and arrested them. 

Safety measures for the security of your Aadhaar Card data

• Locking your biometrics: One way to save your Aadhaar card and prevent unauthorized access is by locking your biometrics. To lock & unlock your Aadhaar biometrics you can visit the official website of UIDAI or its official portal. So go to UIDAI’s and select the “Lock/Unlock Biometrics” from the Aadhar service section. Then enter the 12-digit Aadhaar number and security code and click on the OTP option.  An OTP will be sent to your registered mobile number with Aadhaar.  Once the OTP is received enter the OTP and click on the login button that will allow you to lock your biometrics.  Enter the 4-digit security code mentioned on the screen and click on the “Enable” button. Your biometrics will be locked and you will have to unblock them in case you want to access them again. The official website of UIDAI is “https://uidai.gov.in/” and there is a dedicated Aadhar helpline 1947. 
• Use masked Aadhaar Card: A masked Aadhaar card is a different rendition of an Aadhaar card that is designed to amplify the privacy and security of an individual Aadhaar number.  In a masked Aadhaar card, the first eight digits of the twelve digits Aadhaar number are replaced by XXXX- XXXX and only the last four digits are visible.  This adds an additional layer of protection to an individual Aadhaar’s number. To download a masked Aadhaar card you visit the government website of UIDAI and on the UIDAI homepage, you will see a "Download Aadhaar" option. Click on it.  In the next step, you will be required to enter your 12-digit Aadhaar number along with the security code displayed on the screen.  After entering your Aadhaar number, click on the Send OTP. You will receive an OTP on your registered phone number. Enter the OTP received in the provided field and click on the “Submit” button.  You will be asked to select the format of your Aadhaar card, You can choose the masked Aadhaar card option. This will replace the first eight digits of your Aadhaar number with "XXXX-XXXX" on the downloaded Aadhaar card. Once the format is selected, click on the “Download Aadhaar” button and your masked Aadhaar card will be downloaded. So if any organisation requires your Aadhaar for verification you can share your masked Aadhar card which only shows the last 4 digits of your Aadhaar card number. Just the way you keep your bank details safe you should also keep your Aadhaar number secure otherwise people can misuse your identity and use it for fraud. 
• Monitoring your bank account transactions: Regularly monitor your bank account statements for any suspicious activity and you can also configure transaction alerts with your bank account transactions.

Conclusion: 

It is important to secure your Aadhaar card data effectively. The valuable security measure option of locking biometrics provides an additional layer of security. It safeguards your identity from potential scammers. By locking your biometrics you can secure your biometric data and other personal information preventing unauthorized access and any misuse of your Aadhaar card data. In today's evolving digital landscape protecting your personal information is of utmost importance. The cyber hygiene practices, safety and security measures must be adopted by all of us hence establishing cyber peace and harmonizing cyberspace. 

References:

• https://www.livehindustan.com/bihar/story-cyber-crime-csc-operator-and-bank-sweeper-arrested-in-nawada-cheating-by-cloning-finger-prints-8913667.html
• https://www.indiatoday.in/news-analysis/story/cloning-fingerprints-fake-shell-entities-is-your-aadhaar-as-safe-as-you-may-think-2398596-2023-06-27

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Introduction

Artificial intelligence is often hailed as a democratiser of knowledge, opportunity and skill. It is set to improve diagnostics, personalised learning, and productivity to boost the economy, which can assist millions of people to leave poverty. However, this may be an incomplete picture. A report of the United Nations Development Programme in 2025 tells a more complex tale. The Next Great Divergence: Why AI May Widen Inequality Between Countries cautions that, unless acts are taken to intervene, AI will not alleviate inequality between countries but will instead concentrate benefits in already advantaged economies and increase risks in more vulnerable ones.

Two Gaps, One Crisis

AI is not going to create a level playing field: it has been injected into a world where there is unprecedented inequality. The report outlines two structural asymmetries that will influence the ways in which its effects manifest: a capability gap and a vulnerability gap. 

Those countries that have high connectivity, skills, compute and regulation will be in a position to reap a greater portion of the AI dividend. Others will be exposed to greater risks of job losses, information exclusion, misinformation, and the indirect consequences of increased energy and water demands. 

The centre of this transition is the Asia-Pacific region, that harbors a population of more than 55 per cent of the world. More than half of the global AI users are now located in the region, but the initial positions are quite different. Nations such as Singapore and South Korea are already spending a lot of money on AI infrastructure, with others still striving to offer basic broadband services. Two out of three individuals already use AI tools in certain high-income economies. In most countries with low incomes, the utilisation is lower. Such figures are important as they depict not only a gap in technology but also a structural difference in terms of who controls AI and who is controlled by the latter.

When Inequality Becomes a Trust Problem

Any trusted technological system is based on three tenets: transparency, fairness and accountability. AI inequality negatively impacts all three.

If governments implement imported AI systems in areas with limited technical capability, with limited transparency on their operation, their construction, and their biases. Citizens do not really trust when decision-making systems are black boxes and domestic institutions lack the know-how to question them.

Data exclusion also interferes with fairness. The AI systems trained with the datasets not sufficiently representative of the rural population, linguistic minorities, and women will generate poorer results in those groups systematically. Since South Asian women are much less likely to own a smartphone,  this impacts their representation in digital data, and consequently in any AI system trained on such data. 

Safety Risks Are Not Evenly Distributed

The lack of trust has a direct safety aspect. For example, those countries that have less robust information ecosystems have a greater exposure to AI-generated misinformation that can bias the discourse of the populace, alter elections, and cause violence. They also have the weakest capability of screening, tagging, or combating such content.

The same can be said about labour markets. The very same technologies that can speed up marginalisation and destabilise governance increase human insecurity, especially among employees in the informal economy with weak social security. The UNDP report points out that the exposure of female employment to disruption by AI is disproportionate to that of male employment, which further presents a gendered dimension in an already unequal situation.

Risks of infrastructure are skewed as well. Large AI systems may create disproportionately high energy and water demands on countries that host the data infrastructure without there being an equivalent economic payback. The environmental cost is local while profits are outsourced. Dangers of AI spread downwards, and the advantages go upwards.

The Governance Gap and Regulatory Arbitrage

Governance is perhaps the most important aspect. There are only a few states that presently have extensive AI regulation systems. This gives rise to a patchy landscape, in which safety standards differ dramatically and where companies have an incentive to install systems in jurisdictions that have weaker regulation.

The main reason is the lack of capability, as expressed by Philip Schellekens, chief economist of the UNDP in Asia and the Pacific, who says that those countries that invest in skills, computing power and well-run governance structures will gain. The rest will be left far behind. 

This departure has its ramifications outside the nations. When users in other areas are subjected to widely different rates of safety and equity by the same international platforms, the concept of uniform digital norms would no longer be sustainable. Confidence in AI systems is lost not only locally but also on a global scale.

Way Forward

The UNDP report makes it clear that there is no inevitability of divergence. To avert it, however, it is necessary to consider AI governance as a development, rather than a technology problem.

The capacity to govern should be constructed and not presumed. This implies assisting countries in establishing regulatory systems, institutional capacity, and facilitating cross-border collaboration on standards. It can also imply considering some AI features as a public good, with common models and open standards that do not allow a few firms or states to become too powerful.

The UNDP articulates the problem in a simple manner: in the end, the world's people and not machines must decide on what technologies should be given priority and how to utilise them optimally.

Conclusion

AI inequality is often framed as an economic divergence story. But its implications run deeper. It reshapes who is protected, who is visible in data, and who has the power to challenge harmful outcomes. The risk is not just that some countries fall behind economically. It is that the global digital ecosystem fragments into zones of high trust and low trust, high protection and low protection. The choices made now will determine which path prevails. AI can reinforce existing divides or help bridge them. 

But that outcome will not be decided by the technology itself. It will be decided by how societies choose to distribute access, power, and responsibility in the systems they build.

References

1. https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/2025-12/undp-rbap-the-next-great-divergence_1.pdf
2. https://www.undp.org/asia-pacific/press-releases/ai-risks-sparking-new-era-divergence-development-gaps-between-countries-widen-undp-report-finds
3. https://www.undp.org/asia-pacific/blog/next-great-divergence-how-ai-could-split-world-again-if-we-dont-intervene
4. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/2/ai-threatens-to-widen-inequality-among-states-un
5. https://www.undp.org/asia-pacific/next-great-divergence
6. https://www.eco-business.com/press-releases/ai-risks-spark-new-era-of-divergence-as-development-gaps-widen-undp-report/

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Executive Summary:

A morphed video of the actor Anup Soni popular on social media promoting IPL betting Telegram channel is found to be fake. The audio in the morphed video is produced through AI voice cloning. AI manipulation was identified by AI detection tools and deepfake analysis tools. In the original footage Mr Soni explains a case of crime, a part of the popular show Crime Patrol which is unrelated to betting.  Therefore, it is important to draw the conclusion that Anup Soni is in no way associated with the betting channel.

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Claims:

The facebook post claims the IPL betting Telegram channel which belongs to Rohit Khattar is promoted by Actor Anup Soni.

Fact Check:

Upon receiving the post, the CyberPeace Research Team closely analyzed the video and found major discrepancies which are mostly seen in AI-manipulated videos. The lip sync of the video does not match the audio. Taking a cue from this we analyzed using a Deepfake detection tool by True Media. It is found that the voice of the video is 100% AI-generated. 

We then extracted the audio and checked in an audio Deepfake detection tool named Hive Moderation. Hive moderation found the audio to be 99.9% AI-Generated.

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We then divided the video into keyframes and reverse searched one of the keyframes and found the original video uploaded by the YouTube channel named LIV Crime.

Upon analyzing we found that in the 3:18 time frame the video was edited, and altered with an AI voice.

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Hence, the viral video is an AI manipulated video and it’s not real. We have previously debunked such AI voice manipulation with different celebrities and politicians to misrepresent the actual context. Netizens must be careful while believing in such AI manipulation videos.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the viral video claiming that  IPL betting Telegram channel promotion by actor Anup Soni is false. The video has been manipulated using AI voice cloning technology, as confirmed by both the Hive Moderation AI detector and the True Media AI detection tool. Therefore, the claim is baseless and misleading.

• Claim:  An IPL betting Telegram channel belonging to Rohit Khattar promoted by Actor Anup Soni.
• Claimed on: Facebook
• Fact Check: Fake & Misleading