Invisible pixels protect South Korean graduates’ photos from deepfake abuse

Seoul National University embedded its graduation photos with StealCut Protect, an anti-deepfake technology from an SNU-alumni-founded startup, marking the first use of the tool for a university graduation album in South Korea, The Korea Herald reported. StealCut provided the technology free of charge; it inserts pixel-level signals invisible to the human eye that disrupt deepfake generators' facial-structure analysis, producing a distorted or unidentifiable face when a protected photo is manipulated. The move follows a scandal two years ago in which portraits of female graduates were used to create sexually explicit manipulated images.

Advertisement Invisible pixels protect South Korean graduates’ photos from deepfake abuse The alumni-built technology embeds photos with signals that confuse AI generators to prevent images from being manipulated 2-MIN READ2-MIN Listen A South Korean https://www.scmp.com/topics/south-korea?module=inline&pgtype=article university has embedded graduation photos with anti-deepfake technology to prevent a repeat of a scandal two years ago, when portraits of female graduates were used to create sexually explicit manipulated images. Seoul National University’s SNU use of StealCut Protect, created by a start-up founded by SNU alumni, marked the first time it was used for a university graduation album in the country, The Korea Herald reported. StealCut provided the technology to SNU free of charge. Deepfake models generally work by analysing facial structure characteristics to generate manipulated content. StealCut Protect inserts minute, pixel-level signals – largely invisible to the human eye – into images to disrupt this process. If a deepfake generator tries to manipulate a protected photo, the result is a distorted or unidentifiable face. Select Voice Select Speed 1x AI-generated voice