This article is based on research conducted as a part of the CA POST Command College. It is a futures study of a particular emerging issue of relevance to law enforcement. Its purpose is not to predict the future; rather, to project a variety of possible scenarios useful for planning and action in anticipation of the emerging landscape facing policing organizations.
The article was created using the futures forecasting process of Command College and its outcomes. Managing the future means influencing it — creating, constraining and adapting to emerging trends and events in a way that optimizes the opportunities and minimizes the threats of relevance to the profession.
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
- Deepfakes are undermining the reliability of video evidence in criminal investigations
- Traditional verification methods are no longer sufficient to confirm authenticity
- Smaller agencies face major resource and staffing challenges in combating deepfakes
- Manipulated videos can erode public trust and incite social unrest
- Law enforcement must adopt new technologies and workflows to maintain investigative integrity
By Lieutenant Keith Gomez
The rapid evolution of deepfake technology, powered by advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, has fundamentally transformed the landscape of digital content. This sophisticated technology enables the creation of synthetic media where individuals’ likenesses, voices and actions can be convincingly altered or fabricated entirely through AI algorithms, producing hyperrealistic but artificial content. [1]
All of us, including those who participate in the judicial process, have operated until now under the shared assumption that “the video doesn’t lie.” This longstanding investigative paradigm allowed departments to establish streamlined workflows for handling digital evidence, with verification procedures focused primarily on chain of custody rather than content authentication.
However, the justice system now faces a new reality: Every piece of digital evidence requires rigorous verification protocols. Unfortunately, most midsize police agencies are ill-equipped to implement this level of verification, in terms of both technological capabilities and investigative workflows. This transition from treating digital evidence as inherently reliable to approaching it with skepticism represents one of the most significant procedural shifts in modern investigative practice.
As we look toward the coming decade, law enforcement agencies face a growing challenge: maintaining effective criminal investigations in an environment where the authenticity of digital evidence is increasingly difficult to verify. In the coming decade, you’ll face an unprecedented challenge that could fundamentally change how you conduct investigations. As digital evidence becomes increasingly sophisticated and difficult to authenticate, your ability to build solid cases may be at risk. Moreover, the viral spread of manipulated content featuring law enforcement incidents can rapidly erode public trust and ignite community tensions, turning routine police actions into flashpoints for unrest.
This article examines how the proliferation of deepfake technology will impact investigative processes, resource allocation, organizational structure and public trust in law enforcement, while equipping you with practical strategies to navigate this evolving landscape.
The evolution of deepfakes
Unlike conventional photo or video editing, which often leaves detectable traces, advanced deepfakes leverage sophisticated machine-learning algorithms to create convincingly authentic-appearing content that can be extremely difficult to distinguish from genuine recordings. [2] Imagine investigating a gang-related shooting where all evidence points to a specific suspect, only for the defense to produce convincing, yet fake, gas station surveillance footage showing the suspect filling up their car at a location 50 miles away during the exact time of the murder. Or consider the devastation possible when fabricated body-worn camera footage surfaces online showing your officers planting evidence and openly discussing a cover-up, with voices so perfectly cloned that even the officers’ families initially believe it’s real.
Both examples illustrate a sobering reality: Without specialized AI detection tools and proper preparation, law enforcement faces a dual threat – violent offenders walking free when criminal cases collapse under fabricated evidence, and communities erupting into dangerous protests triggered by synthetic videos designed to inflame tensions. The common thread in both scenarios isn’t just deception but the catastrophic real-world consequences that can follow when digital manipulation goes undetected.
The technological trajectory suggests deepfake creation will soon become increasingly accessible, requiring minimal technical expertise while producing increasingly convincing results. As authors led by Indian cybersecurity expert Mohammad Wazid noted, “The gap between deepfake creation and detection capabilities continues to widen.” [3]
Recent research from the University of California San Diego (UCSD) demonstrated that even specialized deepfake detection systems can be defeated, highlighting the persistent challenge of authentication. [4] “Our work shows that attacks on deepfake detectors could be a real-world threat,” warned Shehzeen Hussain, a UCSD computer engineering Ph.D. student who coauthored the groundbreaking study. “More alarmingly, we demonstrate that it’s possible to craft robust adversarial deepfakes even when an adversary may not be aware of the inner workings of the machine learning model used by the detector.”
The UCSD researchers tested their attacks in two scenarios. In the first, where attackers had complete access to the detector model, the attack’s success rate was above 99% for uncompressed videos and 84.96% for compressed videos. In the second scenario, where attackers could only query the machine learning model (limited access to inner workings and parameters), the success rate was still an alarming 86.43% for uncompressed and 78.33% for compressed videos — essentially rendering current detection systems vulnerable to sophisticated manipulation. With detection technologies proving deceivable even under ideal laboratory conditions, the implications for real-world criminal investigations are profound and immediate.
| WATCH: As AI technology evolves, law enforcement faces new challenges in distinguishing real from AI-generated content; this complexity is reshaping investigative methods and legal frameworks
Impact on criminal investigations
As deepfakes become more sophisticated, you and your investigative team will confront a fundamental epistemic threat that undermines your ability to trust video evidence. [5] Three critical challenges will transform your daily work:
1. Your verification process will change. You’ll find your evidence authentication procedures becoming substantially more time-consuming. What once took minutes may now require hours or days as you implement multitier verification protocols. [6] Imagine receiving surveillance footage showing a suspect at a crime scene. Previously, you could quickly verify its authenticity and usefulness, then quickly proceed with your investigation. Now you’ll need to run this same footage through specialized software, consult with digital forensics experts and document each verification step — potentially turning a 30-minute task into a full-day process or longer. When a case hinges on timely evidence analysis, these delays will significantly impact your workflow.
2. Your witnesses may question themselves. You’ll notice changes in how confidently your witnesses provide testimony. As they’re increasingly exposed to manipulated content in their daily lives, their perceptions and memories of events may become less reliable. [7] Consider interviewing a witness who saw a suspect flee a robbery scene. The witness may have subsequently viewed a deepfake video on social media showing a similar but slightly different scenario. When you ask for their statement, they hesitate and begin to second-guess their firsthand recollection. This uncertainty may become a regular challenge in your witness interviews.
3. Your evidence management will require new tools. The chain-of-custody procedures you’ve relied on for years will need reinforcement. You’ll soon be implementing new technologies like blockchain-based systems to ensure evidence integrity throughout your investigative process. [3] Think of collecting video or photographic evidence from a victim’s phone. Today you forensically download the digital content from a cellular device onto a department server or external hard drive temporarily, then upload the digital file into a digital evidence management system under a specific case number. Tomorrow you’ll need to implement digital fingerprinting at the moment of collection, use tamper-evident storage solutions and create blockchain verification entries to prove the content hasn’t been altered since acquisition. For every piece of digital evidence, you’ll follow these enhanced protocols to defend against potential claims of manipulation that could undermine your entire case in court.
Understanding these challenges to criminal investigations is just your first step.
Resource implications
Small and midsize police departments operate in a unique resource environment. They lack the extensive funding of major metropolitan forces but face sophisticated criminal activity that requires advanced technological capabilities. These departments will face significant resource challenges that will require careful planning and allocation strategies.
The digital authentication landscape will necessitate substantial budget increases to combat this threat. Unlike major metropolitan departments with larger resource pools, smaller agencies may need to make difficult trade-offs between digital authentication capabilities and other policing priorities. There are, though, several federal funding sources and grant opportunities that could help such agencies manage the financial burden of implementing deepfake detection and digital evidence authentication technologies.
Staffing requirements will present another major challenge. New positions focusing on digital forensics and authentication will need to be created and filled with qualified personnel.
As Wazid and colleagues noted, this will be particularly difficult for small and midsize departments that must compete with higher-paying private sector positions for technical talent with specialized expertise in deepfake detection and digital authentication. [3] Many departments may struggle to attract and retain personnel with the necessary technical skills, potentially creating significant gaps in investigative capabilities.
Public trust and community impact
The challenge of deepfakes extends beyond technical and procedural considerations to the fundamental relationship between law enforcement and the communities it serves. By 2031, the proliferation of manipulated content will create significant challenges for maintaining public trust with the following potential outcomes:
- Eroding trust in visual evidence. As deepfakes become more prevalent, public confidence in all digital evidence may diminish, potentially affecting jury decisions and community perceptions of investigations. [5]
- Social unrest potential. The dissemination of manipulated content featuring law enforcement-related incidents can lead to erosion of public trust and potentially catalyze social unrest, requiring proactive management strategies. [1]
- Media literacy challenges: The varying levels of digital literacy within communities will affect how different populations interpret and respond to potentially manipulated content, requiring tailored education and outreach efforts. [8]
Maintaining effective community relationships in this environment will require proactive approaches to transparency, education and engagement around digital evidence authentication. It will also require organizations to change in two significant ways: 1) The structure of police agencies will need to change to adapt to address the challenges of digital evidence, and 2) investigative procedures themselves will have to change to keep pace with the proliferation of deepfakes and other altered digital evidence.
Organizational adaptation
Structural changes
Throughout much of my 25-year law enforcement career, digital evidence has served as a cornerstone of countless successful prosecutions. Video footage depicting suspects committing criminal acts, incriminating photos and videos forensically downloaded from cellular devices, digitally captured confessions and witness statements — all of which have become routine in their collection, booking, examination and presentation in court — have faced minimal scrutiny regarding their authenticity. However, departments now confront a new reality where each digital file crossing a detective’s desk demands extensive verification — a process requiring specialized tools and expertise that many organizations have not budgeted for or integrated into daily operations. This verification burden creates a technological and procedural gap most agencies are not positioned to bridge without significant operational changes.
Establishing dedicated digital evidence units will become necessary, with specialized teams focused on its authentication and management. These units will require technical specialists and trained investigators working collaboratively to maintain the integrity of digital evidence. [3] To complement these internal changes, departments will need to develop formal resource-sharing arrangements with neighboring jurisdictions to create robust regional collaboration networks. These partnerships will allow small and midsize departments to leverage specialized expertise and expensive authentication technologies that might otherwise be beyond their budgetary capabilities.
These structural adaptations will move departments away from traditional compartmentalized approaches toward more integrated and collaborative models. While creating organizational structures capable of addressing the authentication challenge forms the foundation of an effective response, equally critical are the procedural innovations that must take place within these structures to establish reliable, defensible workflows for processing potentially manipulated digital evidence.
Procedural evolution
The increasing sophistication of deepfakes will necessitate fundamental changes to investigative procedures. Law enforcement agencies will need to implement multitier verification protocols for all digital evidence, creating layered authentication processes that may include technical analysis, contextual validation and chain-of-custody certification. [6] These methods will require significantly more time and resources than current approaches.
Alongside these verification protocols, departments will need to develop more comprehensive documentation requirements for digital evidence. These enhanced documentation standards should include detailed records of all processing and authentication steps, creating transparent and defensible evidence trails that can withstand heightened scrutiny in court proceedings and public discourse. [9] These procedural changes represent a substantial shift in how investigations handle digital evidence, requiring new workflows, training and technological infrastructure.
Failing to implement these changes could lead to catastrophic outcomes: Imagine courts declaring moratoriums on all digital evidence submissions after too many cases are compromised by deepfakes, and criminals exploiting the technology gap by either presenting AI-generated alibis that take months to disprove or creating plausible deniability by claiming genuine evidence is fake. To make matters worse, these authentication failures would likely also trigger retroactive challenges to past convictions, significantly overwhelming the court systems and damaging public trust across the entire criminal justice system.
Strategic recommendations
Based on the projected challenges and opportunities, departments should consider a phased approach to building digital authentication capabilities through the next five years. They include:
Immediate actions (2025–2026)
- Capability assessment: Conduct a comprehensive evaluation of current digital forensics capabilities to establish a baseline for future development. [3]
- Strategic partnerships: Establish formal relationships with regional forensics labs, academic institutions and technology providers to leverage existing expertise and resources.
Medium-term implementation (2027–2029)
- Technology deployment: Implement AI-powered detection tools and authentication systems, with an emphasis on usability for nontechnical investigators. [3] High-end systems will currently cost between $50,000–$200,000 annually for the licensing. This typically does not include implementation costs.
- Procedural integration: Develop and implement comprehensive digital evidence handling protocols with enhanced chain-of-custody procedures. [6]
Long-term strategic goals (2030–2031)
- Advanced authentication systems: Integrate quantum authentication or comparable next-generation verification technologies as they become available. [3]
- Comprehensive public education: Develop robust community education programs about digital evidence authentication to maintain public trust. [8]
Conclusion
The challenge of maintaining effective criminal investigations in the face of increasingly sophisticated digital manipulation technologies represents a fundamental shift in law enforcement operations. Success in this new environment will require significant organizational adaptation, resource allocation and strategic planning.
Police departments must take decisive action to develop robust digital authentication capabilities while maintaining public trust and operational effectiveness. This will require a balanced approach that combines technological innovation, organizational adaptation and community engagement.
The future effectiveness of criminal investigations will depend largely on how well departments adapt to these challenges while maintaining their core mission of public safety and justice. Agencies that successfully implement the recommended changes will be better positioned to maintain investigative integrity and public trust in an increasingly complex digital environment.
References
1. Hancock JT, Bailenson JN. The social impact of deepfakes. Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw. 2021.
2. Westerlund M. The emergence of deepfake technology: A review. Technol Innov Manag Rev. 2019;9(11):40-53.
3. Wazid M, Mishra AK, Mohd N, Das AK. A secure deepfake mitigation framework: Architecture, issues, challenges, and societal impact. Cyber Secur Appl. 2024.
4. University of California San Diego. Deepfake detectors can be defeated, computer scientists show for the first time. ScienceDaily. 2021 Feb 8. Available from:
5. Fallis D. The epistemic threat of deepfakes. Philos Technol. 2021;34:655–672.
6. Pfefferkorn R. “Deepfakes” in the courtroom. Boston Univ Public Interest Law J. 2020.
7. Weikmann T, Greber H, Nikolaou A. After deception: How falling for a deepfake affects the way we see, hear, and experience media. Int J Press Polit. 2024.
8. Doss C, Mondschein J, Shu D, et al. Deepfakes and scientific knowledge dissemination. Sci Rep. 2023;13:12834.
9. LaMonaga JP. A break from reality: Modernizing authentication standards for digital video evidence in the era of deepfakes. Am Univ Law Rev. 2020;69(6):1949-1991.
About the author
Keith Gomez is a Lieutenant currently overseeing the Administrative Services Section at the Pasadena Police Department, where he has served for 25 years. He previously served as the Violent Crimes Section Lieutenant for several years and as Acting Commander of the Criminal Investigations Division for 6.5 months. Throughout his career, he has held various leadership positions including Robbery/Homicide Unit Sergeant and SWAT Sergeant. Lieutenant Gomez specializes in homicide investigations, officer-involved shooting investigations, high-risk operations, and critical incident management. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Occupational Studies from California State University, Long Beach, and is a graduate of the Executive Leadership Institute at Drucker and the FBI-LEEDA Executive Leadership Institute. Lieutenant Gomez is the current President of the Pasadena Police Lieutenants’ Association and has received numerous awards, including the Silver Medal of Courage and multiple commendations for his service.