Warning to UK politicians over risk of audio deepfakes that could derail the general election
As AI deepfakes cause havoc during other elections, experts warn the UK’s politicians should be prepared.
“Just tell me what you had for breakfast”, says Mike Narouei, of ControlAI, recording on his laptop. I speak for around 15 seconds, about my toast, coffee and journey to their offices.
Within seconds, I hear my own voice, saying something entirely different.
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In this case, words I have written: “Deepfakes can be extremely realistic and have the ability to disrupt our politics and damage our trust in the democratic process.”
Tamara Cohen’s voice being turned into a deepfake
We have used free software, it hasn’t taken any advanced technical skills, and the whole thing has taken next to no time at all.
This is an audio deepfake – video ones take more effort to produce – and as well as being deployed by scammers of all kinds, there is deep concern, in a year with some two billion people going to the polls, in the US, India and dozens of other countries including the UK, about their impact on elections.
Sir Keir Starmer fell victim to one at last year’s Labour Party conference, purportedly of him swearing at staff. It was quickly outed as a fake. The identity of who made it has never been uncovered.
London mayor Sadiq Khan was also targeted this year, with fake audio of him making inflammatory remarks about Remembrance weekend and calling for pro-Palestine marches going viral at a tense time for communities. He claimed new laws were needed to stop them.
Ciaran Martin, the former director of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, told Sky News that expensively made video fakes can be less effective and easier to debunk than audio.
“I’m particularly worried right now about audio, because audio deepfakes are spectacularly easy to make, disturbingly easy”, he said. “And if they’re cleverly deployed, they can have an impact.”
Those which have been most damaging, in his view, are an audio deepfake of President Biden, sent to voters during the New Hampshire primaries in January this year.
A “robocall” with the president’s voice told voters to stay at home and “save” their votes for the presidential election in November. A political consultant later claimed responsibility and has been indicted and fined $6m (£4.7m).
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Ciaran Martin, the former NCSC director
Mr Martin, now a professor at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University, said: “It was a very credible imitation of his voice and anecdotal evidence suggests some people were tricked by that.
“Not least because it wasn’t an email they could forward to someone else to have a look at, or on TV where lots of people were watching. It was a call to their home which they more or less had to judge alone.
“Targeted audio, in particular, is probably the biggest threat right now, and there’s no blanket solution, there’s no button there that you can just press and make this problem go away if you are prepared to pay for it or pass the right laws.
“What you need, and the US did this very well in 2020, is a series of responsible and well-informed eyes and ears throughout different parts of the electoral system to limit and mitigate the damage.”
He says there is a risk to hyping up the threat of deepfakes, when they have not yet caused mass electoral damage.
A Russian-made fake broadcast of Ukrainian TV, he said, featuring a Ukrainian official taking responsibility for a terrorist attack in Moscow, was simply “not believed”, despite being expensively produced.
The UK government has passed a National Security Act with new offences of foreign interference in the country’s democratic processes.
The Online Safety Act requires tech companies to take such content down, and meetings are being regularly held with social media companies during the pre-election period.
Democracy campaigners are concerned that deepfakes could be used not just by hostile foreign actors, or lone individuals who want to disrupt the process – but political parties themselves.
Polly Curtis is chief executive of the thinktank Demos, which has called on the parties to agree to a set of guidelines for the use of AI.
Polly Curtis, the chief executive of Demos
She said: “The risk is that you’ll have foreign actors, you’ll have political parties, you’ll have ordinary people on the street creating content and just stirring the pot of what’s true and what’s not true.
“We want them to come together and agree together how they’re going to use these tools at the election. We want them to agree not to create generative AI or amplify it, and label it when it is used.
“This technology is so new, and there are so many elections going on, there could be a big misinformation event in an election campaign that starts to affect people’s trust in the information they’ve got.”
Deepfakes have already been targeted at major elections.
Last year, within hours before polls closed in the Slovakian presidential election, an audio fake of one of the candidates claiming to have rigged the election went viral. He was heavily defeated and his pro-Russian opponent won.
The UK government established a Joint Election Security Preparations Unit earlier this year – with Whitehall officials working with police and security agencies – to respond to threats as they emerge.
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A UK government spokesperson said: “Security is paramount and we are well-prepared to ensure the integrity of the election with robust systems in place to protect against any potential interference.
“The National Security Act contains tools to tackle deepfake election threats and social media platforms should also proactively take action against state-sponsored content aimed at interfering with the election.”
A Labour spokesperson said: “Our democracy is strong, and we cannot and will not allow any attempts to undermine the integrity of our elections.
“However, the rapid pace of AI technology means that government must now always be one step ahead of malign actors intent on using deepfakes and disinformation to undermine trust in our democratic system.
“Labour will be relentless in countering these threats.”
Fewer police officers are working on unsolved murder cases amid warnings the Metropolitan Police is dangerously stretched.
Five officers from the force are moving from a specialist cold case department investigating the 30-year-old murder of Atek Hussain to instead bolster basic command units.
Mr Hussain, 32, was stabbed in the heart as he returned from work in September 1994. He managed to stagger to his home and tell his family that his attackers were Asian before collapsing.
No charges have ever been brought in the case despite two focused appeals by the police on the 10th and 20th anniversaries of his killing.
Mr Hussain’s daughter Yasmin was 10 when she watched her father die in their family home. She told Sky News she had hoped the Met would launch a renewed appeal on the 30th anniversary of his death this week.
“I waited and waited as September approached, hoping they’d say something but all of the officers I’d been dealing with have either retired or moved on, and it seems nobody knows what to do with me,” she said.
“One person told me to call 101.”
Yasmin Hussain has launched her own appeal for help to find her father’s killers
The Met told Sky News the case is not currently active. However, no unsolved murder investigation is ever closed and Mr Hussain’s case was last reviewed by its Serious Crime Review Group in August.
“Should any new information come to light, it will be assessed accordingly,” it said in a statement.
“In order to better protect the public, including the prevention of future homicides, we are moving some experienced officers from specialist units to bolster BCU (basic command unit) public protection teams to ensure they have the right skills, experience and capacity.
“The MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) continues to maintain a strong capability to investigate cold case homicides. No unsolved homicide is ever closed and all cases remain under review.”
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Clive Driscoll, a former Detective Chief Inspector of the Met Police who finally secured two convictions for the murder of Stephen Lawrence, explains how the forces deal with cold cases.
“Every two years you would review the case to see if there are opportunities. The one that always stands out is forensics opportunities. Forensics moved on while we’ve been talking. So that’s what you would do with a review, you would be looking to see whether or not something has changed from the last time you saw it.”
Mr Driscoll says forces across the country are facing challenges including a shortage of officers and staff, greater scrutiny of the police and an issue with confidence among officers.
Former Met Police DCI Clive Driscoll
“They feel that maybe their job has become harder,” he told Sky News before urging police units to go the extra mile.
“As hard as it may be for a police officer, it can’t be even a slightest comparison of how hard it must be for Mr Hussain’s children who’ve lost their father.”
Recent data shows the annual number of unsolved homicides across Britain has more than doubled since 2010. That is thought to be driven almost entirely by a surge in larger police forces, in particular the Met.
On Wednesday, Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley described the force as “dangerously stretched”, telling an audience at the Police Foundation that a wave of new pressures, a lack of investment, abuse and insults of the police and reduced confidence among officers has left London less safe.
Mr Driscoll warned that failing to properly review unsolved homicides sends a dangerous message.
“We don’t want to send the message out to people that feel they can take the life of a human being and after a certain amount of time ‘oh that’s alright then I’ve got away with it’. The message must always be that if there is an opportunity to affect an arrest, put someone before a court then we will take it. We must always show that we will not forget the victim and also that out there is someone who felt that they can take someone’s life.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Atek Hussain had spent the evening working at his family-run restaurant in Croydon before arriving home to Burnels Avenue in East Ham at around 2.35am on 18 September 1994.
Officers believe he had just got out of his blue Vauxhall Cavalier and was walking towards his front door when he was attacked and stabbed in the chest.
In the absence of a renewed public plea from the police, Yasmin Hussain has launched her own appeal for help finding her father’s killers.
If you have information that could help police, call 101 or post @MetCC, or to remain 100% anonymous contact the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111, or visit crimestoppers-uk.org.
UK
Mohamed al Fayed ‘carried Viagra’ and ‘cherry picked’ women from Harrods shop floor, ex-employee claims
A former member of the Harrods management team has told how Mohamed al Fayed would “cherry pick” women from the shop floor.
Speaking to Sky News anonymously, the woman described the billionaire, who died last year aged 94, as “demonic” and said he “controlled everything with fear”.
Lawyers representing 37 alleged victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Fayed branded him a “monster” who was “enabled by a system that pervaded Harrods” at a news conference on Friday.
The former employee of the luxury department store, which the Egyptian businessman took control of in 1985, worked at Harrods at the height of his power.
“We were all told Harrods is the greatest place on Earth – but he controlled everything with fear,” she said.
“The power dynamic was so strong, in the blink of an eye you would lose your career and they would try and destroy you. It was this dark psychological trap and everybody was caught.”
She said she heard stories Fayed, known to staff as “the chairman”, would grope people although she was never a victim herself.
Harrods department store in London. Pic: AP
“The chairman would walk around the store and he would cherry pick people from the shop floor, if you had blond hair and brown eyes you were favoured,” she said.
“He used to say, ‘I want that one up in my office now’. He used to carry Viagra around in his pocket, and people were so scared of his ‘floor walks’ – if you weren’t smiling enough you were in the shit, if you smiled too much you were also in the shit.”
Read more: Egyptian tycoon was never far from controversy
The ex-employee, who worked at Harrods in her first job after leaving university, said when women were called to Fayed’s office they “couldn’t say no”.
“I would sit her down and I would say I need to let you know what you are walking into,” she said.
“It’s suddenly a pay rise, and you’ll be invited to expensive events and lavished with expensive gifts but really you need to be aware of something.
“I said you will get invited to Park Lane, and parties where there will be lots of rich men, and you would be invited to sleep with people.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
She said she was once asked to see Fayed in his lounge-like office where he was wearing his slippers and said: “When are you going to come up and work for me here?”
The woman said she told him she did not want to work there and went back to her normal job.
“Afterwards he would smile at me and was courteous but then I started getting extra money in my pay packet. I went to the pay office and they said it’s a bonus for what you are doing. It didn’t last long but it happened just after he’d asked to meet him.”
The woman said she now feels “really conflicted” as she was “vulnerable too”.
“It was my first job leaving university. It leaves me feeling angry that we put up with things in that generation, that was our norm,” she added.
Harrods has said in a statement it is “utterly appalled” by the allegations of abuse and apologised to Fayed’s alleged victims.
The department store has also set up a page on its website inviting former employees to come forward if they have allegations.
A body has been found in the search for a missing hospital chaplain who starred in a Channel 4 documentary.
Katherine Watson, 50, was last seen in the Heaton Road area of Newcastle, at about 1pm on Thursday and Northumbria Police had become “increasingly concerned” for her welfare.
But after “extensive searches”, the force said a body had been found in the Jesmond Dene area of the city. Although formal identification has yet to take place, “it is believed to be Katherine”, they added.
“Her next of kin have been made aware and are being supported by specially-trained officers,” it said.
“This is an incredibly sad outcome and our thoughts are with Katherine’s loved ones at this difficult time. We will continue to support them in any way we can and we ask that their privacy is respected.”
Also known as Reverend Captain Katie Watson, she joined the army in her late teens, serving in Bosnia in the 1990s and as part of the Royal Military Police.
“Once you have seen genocide first-hand on the streets of a European country, there is nothing left in the world that can faze you after that,” she told the Church Times in 2022, as the Geordie Hospital documentary was first aired on Channel 4.
“I have seen the worst of humanity and I have seen, and continue to see, the very best of it.”
Ms Watson worked at the Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for more than 16 years and was made head of chaplaincy in 2020.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Channel 4’s documentary Geordie Hospital was a six-part series that filmed hospital staff through a shift, featuring a cast including porters, surgeons, dental nurses and chaplains.
Speaking about her role in the show, Ms Watson said: “We only have two things to offer, the gifts of time and presence, but we give them whole-heartedly.”
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There was an outpouring of support online for Ms Watson following the news she was missing.
“She baptised our baby boy when he passed away at birth and presided over his funeral,” one person wrote on X. “She’s such a wonderful person who gave us unwavering support through our darkest hours.”
Another said: “The compassion and care you gave me and my family when our mum passed last year was a tremendous blessing and support.”
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