Beyond detection, deepfakes highlight vulnerabilities in the chain of custody for digital evidence. At every point between collection and presentation, there exists an opportunity for files to be intercepted, altered, or substituted. The International Review of Law and Jurisprudence (n.d.) emphasizes that many legal systems lack robust mechanisms to guarantee the integrity of digital evidence throughout this process. Without cryptographic safeguards or blockchain-based verification, courts may find it impossible to prove that a piece of video or audio has not been tampered with.
Emerging solutions, such as embedding cryptographic hashes or tamper-proof digital watermarks at the time of recording, show promise. For example, initiatives like Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative and Microsoft’s Project Origin aim to attach secure provenance data to audiovisual materials. Yet, as Westerlund (2019) notes, widespread adoption of these tools remains slow, particularly in under-resourced forensic labs and courts. The uneven availability of such infrastructure risks creating disparities across jurisdictions.