A voice cloned in seconds. A face swapped with a click. A video that never happened but which looks real enough to fool millions. What once belonged to science fiction has become an everyday digital threat. Across the world, deepfakes– AI-generated audio and video fabrications– are no longer curiosities but weapons, fuelling fraud, harassment, and political manipulation.
The numbers tell the story. A 2023 report by security firm Pindrop found that deepfake fraud attempts had surged by 3000 percent in a single year, with businesses losing an average of $343,000 per incident. Keepnet Labs estimated in 2024 that a deepfake attack now occurs every five minutes globally, contributing to losses exceeding $4.6 billion. And behind those headlines is an even darker reality: watchdogs confirm that the majority of deepfake content is pornographic, and disproportionately targets women and girls.
Pakistan has not been spared. The 2024–25 election cycle saw deepfakes enter mainstream politics for the first time.
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