EDITORIAL — Deepfakes in the 2025 polls

In the 2022 general elections, advocates for clean and honest polls lamented the widespread use of digital technology for spreading misinformation and disinformation to influence the vote.

Since that electoral exercise, digital technology has continued to advance at dizzying speed, giving the world artificial intelligence that has worried even the top tech entrepreneurs. AI has facilitated the creation of deepfakes, which are now being used in content creation for online fraud. In recent weeks, cyber sleuths in the Philippines have warned the public about the increasing use of deepfakes utilizing prominent personalities to endorse products and carry out a wide range of scams.

As worrisome as these fraudulent money-making schemes is the possible use of deepfakes to influence the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections next year. This warning was issued by the Department of Information and Communications Technology, which has admitted an acute lack of manpower to detect and neutralize hackers and digital fraudsters.

The Commission on Elections has been trying to keep up with technology that may affect voting outcome. But the Comelec itself has yet to fully address concerns raised by a group of cyber security experts over the poll body’s use of a single private internet protocol or IP address for the unusually rapid transmission of a massive number of votes in the 2022 presidential race.

Election watchdog groups worked with cyber security agencies and experts to try to curb the spread of disinformation and misinformation in the 2022 polls. With the increasing sophistication of AI technology, the task has become more challenging, even with the combined resources of the government and the private sector. With just over a year before the midterm elections, an aggressive effort is needed to protect the vote from deepfakes and other forms of digital chicanery.