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AFP
21 hours ago
- Politics
- AFP
No evidence of mandatory face scans for Canadians at US border
"Facial recognition checks now mandatory for Canadians entering the U.S. by car," reads the text inside a May 19, 2025 Facebook photo. The caption accompanying the image, which was also shared on TikTok, claims new border screening procedures would include photographing travelers for the purposes of verifying their identification documents. Separate posts spread similar claims about required facial recognition scans for Canadians at land border crossings on Facebook and Instagram. Image Screenshot of a Facebook post taken May 30, 2025 With an emphasis on immigration enforcement, have been marked by concerns of potentially unlawful deportations and moves to scrap the longstanding birthright citizenship policy. The president's occupation with border security precipitated trade tensions with Canada, after he alleged his country's northern neighbor fails to stop the dangerous drug fentanyl and undocumented migrants from reaching the United States. The changing relationship between the two countries already led to misleading claims about commerce and travel, and the rumor that Canadians would now be subjected to mandatory facial recognition scans are similarly . Recent reporting from the tech magazine Wired found CBP was planning to photograph every traveler entering and exiting the United States in personal vehicles to match their face to their identification documents (archived here and here). According to the CBP website, biometric data collection, which can include face scans and fingerprinting, is currently in testing for entries by vehicles at border crossings into Buffalo, New York and Brownsville, Texas (archived here and here). Publications from the CBP about the Buffalo and Brownsville crossings, as well as a report on a testing period for the technology at entry points into Arizona and Texas, said the system would attempt to take photos of each occupant of a vehicle entering through certain marked lanes but that travelers may still opt out of the data collection by crossing the border through different gates (archived here, here and here). Image Screenshot of a US Customs and Border Control report taken May 30, 2025 Expanding biometric collection (archived here). Len Saunders, an immigration lawyer practicing in Blaine, Washington close to the border with British Columbia (archived here), said he had seen travelers prompted to take face scans at nearby crossings when entering on foot, but not by car. "Are they going to hold up a camera and take everyone's picture? Well, if they do that it's going to delay the whole process," Saunders said. Wired reported the system testing was still turning out errors and that CBP was calling for pitches from tech companies for tools which could scan the faces of people inside vehicles. US citizens have the option to refuse scans at pedestrian land and air entr (archived here). The fact-checking organization Snopes reported Canadian and Bermudian passport holders travelling to the United States for tourism are not required to provide biometric data. The Government of Canada's online travel advice states most Canadian citizens entering the United States are exempt from biometric collection except those who require a visa or documentation of their arrival and exit dates (archived here). For Saunders, new facial recognition procedures do not necessarily raise privacy concerns as travelers already consent to screening when they cross a border, but he said the addition of data collection categories could be "a slippery slope." Read more AFP's reporting on misinformation and disinformation in Canada here.
AFP
a day ago
- Health
- AFP
'Make America Healthy Again' report cites nonexistent studies: authors
The highly anticipated "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) report was released on May 22 by the presidential commission tasked with assessing drivers of childhood chronic disease. But it included broken citation links and credits authors with papers they say they did not write. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt downplayed the errors as "formatting issues" during a press briefing on May 29 (archived here). "It does not negate the substance of the report," said Leavitt, who expressed confidence in Kennedy and his team, and insisted their work was "backed on good science." Image White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt takes questions during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, DC, on May 29, 2025 (AFP / Jim WATSON) The issues were first reported May 29 by NOTUS (archived here), a US digital news website affiliated with the nonprofit Allbritton Journalism Institute. Noah Kreski (archived here), a Columbia University researcher listed as an author of a paper on adolescent anxiety and depression during the Covid-19 pandemic, told AFP the citation is "not one of our studies" and "doesn't appear to be a study that exists at all." The citation included a link (archived here) that purported to send users to an article in the peer-reviewed medical journal JAMA Pediatrics, but it was broken. Jim Michalski, a spokesman for the JAMA Network (archived here), said it "was not published in JAMA Pediatrics or in any JAMA Network journal." Columbia University epidemiologist Katherine Keyes (archived here), who was also listed as an author of the supposed JAMA study, told AFP she does research on the topic but does not know where the statistics credited to her came from, and that she "did not write that paper." She expressed concern about the error saying: "Citation practices are an important part of conducting and reporting rigorous science." She said she would be happy to send her actual research on depressive symptoms in adolescents and young adults "to the MAHA committee to correct the report, although I have not yet received information on where to reach them." Guohua Li, another Columbia University professor named in the citation (archived here), said the reference is "totally fabricated" and that he does not even know Kreski. AFP also spoke with Harold Farber, a pediatrics professor at Baylor College of Medicine (archived here), who said the paper attributed to him "does not exist" nor had he ever collaborated with the co-authors credited in the MAHA report. Similarly, Brian McNeill, spokesperson for Virginia Commonwealth University, confirmed that professor Robert Findling (archived here) did not author a paper the report says he wrote about advertising of psychotropic medications for youth. A fourth paper on ADHD medication was also not published in the journal Pediatrics in 2008 as claimed in the MAHA report, according to the journal's publisher, the American Academy of Pediatrics. A keyword search reveals a blog post with the same title as the purported paper, "Direct-to-consumer advertising and the rise in ADHD medication use among children" but it has a different author and is not a peer-reviewed publication (archived here). The Democratic National Committee blasted the report as "rife with misinformation" in a May 29 press release, saying Kennedy's agency "is justifying its policy priorities with studies and sources that do not exist" (archived here). Citations edited The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) declined to comment, referring AFP's questions to the White House. At her briefing, Leavitt declined to answer how the report was produced and whether artificial intelligence tools may have been used to craft it, directing those questions back to HHS. t reported its analysis of the citations showed "oaicite" was attached to the URLs, the presence of which indicates the use of artificial intelligence products from OpenAI (archived here). Within hours of the briefing, an edited version of the report replaced the original paper on the White House website (archived here). Changes are not flagged or marked as corrections, but the four citations investigated by AFP were replaced with working links. The modifications are as follows: The paper said to come from the team at Columbia University was swapped out for a reference to a briefing on the Teen National Health Interview Survey published by KFF (archived here). The nonexistent paper credited to Farber was replaced with a paper on oral corticosteroid medication prescribed for asthma he published in Pediatrics in 2017 (archived here). An article published in the journal Psychiatric Services in 2006 replaced the paper initially credited to Findling (archived here). The reference to a paper on ADHD medication advertising was supplanted by a 2013 article from The New York Times (archived here) Concerns about Kennedy The revelations about the MAHA study came just a day after Kennedy attacked major medical journals, accusing them of collaborating with the pharmaceutical industry and threatening to bar government scientists from publishing in them. Kennedy was approved as health secretary earlier this year despite widespread alarm from the medical community over his history of promoting vaccine misinformation and denying scientific facts. Since taking office, he has ordered the National Institutes of Health to probe the causes of autism -- a condition he has long falsely tied to the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The report's chronic disease references appear to nod to that same disproven theory, discredited by numerous studies since the idea first aired in a late 1990s paper based on falsified data. It also criticizes the "over-medicalization" of children, citing surging prescriptions of psychiatric drugs and antibiotics, and blaming "corporate capture" for skewing scientific research. Image US Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) (L) look on as Director of the National Institutes of Health Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya holds up a copy of a MAHA health report during a MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) Commission Event in the White House in Washington, DC, on May 22, 2025. A White House report detailing Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s priorities devotes sizable space to stoking fear about vaccines -- even as it tackles more grounded worries over chemicals and diet. (AFP / Jim WATSON) Read more of AFP's reporting on health misinformation here. Gwen Roley and Manon Jacob contributed reporting to this article.
AFP
a day ago
- Politics
- AFP
Pro-India parade filmed in Gujarat state, not Pakistan
"RSS marches in Balochistan. You must have heard the name RSS Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh," reads a Hindi-language X post on May 20, 2025, referring to the group that is the ideological fountainhead of India's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (archived link). "These days it has become active in Balochistan, see," the post adds. Its featured footage shows a group of people holding Indian flags and banners, marching through a street. Image Screenshot of the false post taken May 27, 2025 Similar posts surfaced on Facebook after the BJP launched a national flag campaign called "Tiranga Yatra" to highlight New Delhi's recent military action against Islamabad (archived link). India carried out airstrikes that it said targeted "terror camps" inside Pakistan in early May in response to an attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir which New Delhi blames on its neighbour. Islamabad denies the charge (archived link). The conflict that ensued killed 70 people on both sides and pushed the nuclear-armed neighbours to brink of a war before an unexpected truce halted the fighting (archived link). However, Balochistan province, where attacks by separatist groups have soared in the past few years (archived link). The video in the posts has been misrepresented. A using keyframes led to the same video uploaded on YouTube on May 17, 2025. Its description says the visuals show a "Tiranga Yatra" march in Gujarat's Surat city (archived link). Image Screenshot comparison of the false post (L) and the clip from YouTube According to a report from The Indian Express newspaper, the parade happened on May 14 and saw attendees playing patriotic songs and holding up placards hailing Indian soldiers (archived link). Banners visible in the clip are written in the Gujarati language and a picture of , could be seen at the 24-second mark. Image Screenshot of the clip with the Gujarati signs highlighted by AFP Using shop signs as clues, AFP was able to confirm the location of the footage by comparing its visuals with Google Maps street imagery of a road in Surat (archived link). Image Screenshot comparison of the false post (L) and Google Maps street imagery of the area AFP has debunked other misinformation stemming from the India-Pakistan conflict here.
AFP
a day ago
- Politics
- AFP
Picture of S.Korean politician 'supporting rival' is doctored
"Mr. Hong Joon-pyo, I'm disappointed. Go ahead and live together with others," reads a Korean-language Facebook post shared on May 29, 2025. The phrase "together with others" is wordplay on the Democratic Party's Korean name "Deobureo Minjudang". The first word means "together with" while the second means "Democratic Party". Hong, a five-term lawmaker, ran for president in 2017 but lost to Democratic Party nominee Moon Jae-in. He made another bid in 2022, but Yoon was chosen instead as the presidential candidate at the People Power Party (PPP) primary. After resigning as mayor of southeastern Daegu city earlier this year for another run for the presidency, he was again defeated and quit the party, departing for Hawaii (archived link). The post features a screenshot from messaging app KakaoTalk that includes an image of Hong apparently wearing a white jacket printed with "Lee Jae-myung now" and "1" -- Lee's candidate number. "A photo showing Hong Joon-pyo in the United States wearing a campaign outfit for candidate Lee Jae-myung," an accompanying message reads. Text overlaid on the image reads: "This beast? A person?! A dog?" Image Screenshot of the Facebook post taken May 30, 2025 South Korea will hold a snap presidential election on June 3 triggered by Yoon's disastrous martial law declaration, with the two-day early voting period beginning five days prior (archived link). All major polls have placed Lee as the clear frontrunner in the race, with conservative ex-labour minister Kim Moon-soo of the PPP trailing far behind (archived here and here). The picture of Hong sporting a pro-Lee slogan circulated across platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, X and Threads. "The face of a human, but the heart of a beast. How can you be like this? Traitor to the conservatives. Quit politics," a misled user wrote in a comment. Another said: "Hong Joon-pyo, why are you so petty and sly. Good luck getting along with Lee Jae-myung." The image, however, is edited; Hong's jacket did not show a political message in the original photo. A reverse image search on Google revealed Hong posted the photo featuring him and his wife on Facebook on May 15 (archived link). He added that the picture was taken at the summit of Mauna Kea on Hawaii's Big Island. Image Screenshot comparison of the image shared in false posts (L) and the original photo While in Hawaii, Hong has remained active on Facebook. At one point, he changed the colour of his tie in his profile picture to blue -- the symbolic colour of the Democratic Party -- before switching it back to the PPP's colour red (archived here and here). This prompted speculation he might switch sides and join the rival camp, but he later rejected such rumours and expressed support for Kim, according to local news reports (archived here and here). AFP has previously debunked misinformation surrounding the upcoming presidential election in South Korea.
AFP
a day ago
- Politics
- AFP
Video showing Pope Leo XIV praising Burkina Faso's leader is AI-generated
'Pope Leo XIV Responds to Captain Ibrahim Traore /A message of Truth, Justice and Reconciliation,' read the caption of a video posted on Facebook. The video, published on May 15, 2025, shows the pope giving an address while holding two pieces of paper. Image Screenshot of the false Facebook post taken on May 26, 2025 'To His Excellency President Ibrahim Traoré, President of the Sovereign Nation of Burkina Faso, son of African soil, defender of his people, may grace and peace multiply for you through wisdom, courage and truth,' the pope appears to say at the beginning of the 17-minute clip. Included is an English transcript of the audio. The video appeared on X and Facebook accounts in Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria. Robert Francis Prevost became Pope Leo XIV on May 8, 2025, after cardinals from around the globe elected him, in less than two days, to be the first US leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics (archived here). However, the posts claiming to feature a video of the pontiff responding to a letter from Traore are false. Altered video The movement of the Pope's lips appears to match the audio, and there are no visual inconsistencies in his appearance, which can be signs that a video has been altered using AI. However, the pontiff appears to mispronounce Traore's name in different ways in quick succession, calling him 'President Trayas' at 2'33' in the video and 'President Trayor' four seconds later – an unlikely occurrence if he delivered the speech. The English transcript (in red bold letters) partially obscures a line of French text, which indicates that the pope originally delivered an address at the Salle Paul VI audience hall at the Vatican (archived here). Image Screenshot showing the French text (circled orange) that indicates the location of the event, taken on May 29, 2025 A reverse image search using keyframes extracted from the video further shows that the original clip was from a press conference held on May 12, 2025, when the pope called for the release of imprisoned journalists and urged the world to 'avoid the paradigm of war' (archived here). The pope addressed journalists in Italian, not English, as portrayed in the altered clip. The altered clip was also posted on YouTube by Pan African Dreams, a channel that regularly publishes content about Traore. This was on May 17, 2025 – days before it circulated elsewhere on social media – and was identified as synthetic content that was digitally generated. The owners of the YouTube account also included a disclaimer. It reads: 'This video is a work of fiction inspired by the life of IBRAHIM TRAORÉ. While some elements are based on real events, the situations and dialogues described are entirely imaginary and do not reflect any actual events'. Image Screenshot showing the disclaimer attached to the altered video on YouTube An authentic English transcript of the original address published on the Vatican's website showed that the Pope did not mention Africa or Traore during the entire speech (archived here). AFP Fact Check extracted the audio from the altered clip and ran it through – an audio tool that looks for specific forensic traces left by voice generators. The result showed a 99 percent probability that the audio was generated with an AI tool. Image Screenshot of the results, taken on May 26, 2025 The Vatican media department has also denied that the Pope received a letter from Burkina Faso or delivered a public address responding to Traore (archived here). Traore became Burkina Faso's military leader after a coup in September 2022 amid growing anti-French sentiment in the Sahel region (archived here). He is a frequent topic of viral social media posts in which supporters cast him in a positive light, but observers say his online rise has been accompanied by a flood of misleading and false claims. More AFP fact-checks related to artificial intelligence can be found here.
