28-yr-old Mumbai man held for circulating deepfakes on social media

The issue of deepfakes – convincingly real looking fake videos and pictures – is once again in the spotlight after the Ambernath police arrested a 28-year-old Malad resident for allegedly generating objectionable content of a 25-year-old woman who refused to marry him

The issue of deepfakes – convincingly real looking fake videos and pictures – is once again in the spotlight after the Ambernath police arrested a 28-year-old Malad resident for allegedly generating objectionable content of a 25-year-old woman who refused to marry him.

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Police said that the victim, who is married and pregnant, stays with her family in Ambernath. She approached the police on May 19 this year to complain about several objectionable videos and pictures of her that were circulated on social media through multiple accounts.

The police said that the victim was in a panic as she had never posed for any of the pictures or videos, and the repeated emergence of such content on Facebook and Instagram was causing problems in her married life.

The police registered a case against unknown persons and started investigating the matter. Details of all the pictures and videos were collected and, with the help of the Thane Police cyber cell, the Ambernath police sought Internet Protocol addresses and other data from Facebook and Instagram. The data, which was received after several days, included a cell phone number, and the police then obtained Call Detail Record and registration details of the number.

“Based on these inquiries, we picked up the accused, identified as Maqsood Ali Khan, 28, a hardware engineer by profession. We examined his cell phone and found four Facebook accounts as well as three Instagram accounts that he was using to upload the objectionable content. His phone also had apps that generate nude photos and videos on the basis of normal photographs of the victim,” senior inspector Sanjay Dhumal, Ambernath police station, said.

Dhumal added that Khan had been committing the offence for the past 10 months. “Khan and the victim had studied together till junior college and he had proposed to her. She turned down his proposal and married someone else. The victim had even forgotten about the whole thing and was shocked to discover that Khan was allegedly behind the sustained harassment,” Dhumal said.