Tinder for a firestorm: deepfake video quality fuels romance baiting scams
Beth Hyland thought she had met the love of her life on Tinder.
In reality, the Michigan-based administrative assistant had been manipulated by an online scam artist who posed as a French man named 'Richard', used deepfake video on Skype calls and posted photos of another man to pull off his con.
A 'deepfake' is manipulated video or audio made using artificial intelligence (AI) to look and sound real. They are often difficult to detect without specialised tools.
In a matter of months, Hyland, 53, had taken out loans totalling $26,000, sent 'Richard' the money, and fallen prey to a classic case of romance baiting.
A projected 8-million deepfakes will be shared worldwide in 2025, up from 500,000 in 2023, says the British government.
About a fifth of those will be part of romance scams, according to a January report from cyber firm McAfee.
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