Arrested Because of a Deepfake?

We talk a lot about how AI is changing the civil justice system, but what about the criminal justice system? Aren’t the stakes higher when someone’s freedom is on the line?

Imagine this. A fake Facebook video shows you at a protest causing a scene. An AI-generated 911 call uses your cloned voice to accuse a business rival of a felony. Or your face is placed on surveillance footage from a smash-and-grab robbery. In seconds, AI can create a digital trail of a crime that never happened. So here is the question: does a convincing deepfake, standing on its own, meet the constitutional standard for probable cause? Let’s assume for a moment that it does. What happens after you get arrested?

Sure, you will likely prove that the video was fake and clear your name. But that will not undo the handcuffs, the mugshot, or the record that follows you every time you apply for a job or a lease. The damage happens long before the truth ever catches up. And it’s not just about the innocent citizens. It also affects law enforcement officers, who are already stretched too thin. They do not have the time or resources to run a forensic analysis on every video, voicemail, or screenshot that lands on their desk. So if they have to verify every file before taking action, the system will slow to a crawl.

This may mean that we have a new victim because law enforcement was unable to act quick enough. It also means that actual victims may have to wait for justice because crime labs are buried under fake evidence, trying to sort real from synthetic. The more noise there is, the harder it becomes to find the truth.

That is where we are now, a justice system built for eye witnesses and fingerprints trying to operate in an age of artificial intelligence. We have to start asking what probable cause really means when the evidence itself can lie. How do we keep fairness and speed in balance when technology can fake both?

I know these are existential questions, but we cannot wait for the first deepfake arrest to start asking them.