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Deepfake

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Under the EU AI Act, a deep fake is AI-generated or manipulated image, audio or video content that resembles existing persons, objects, places, entities or events and would falsely appear to a person to be authentic; deployers must disclose it, with lighter duties for evident art or satire 1.

Developed in
ch. 20, Deepfakes and synthetic media
ch. 18, Transparency cases (Article 50)
Chapters
ch. 18, EU AI Act · ch. 20, Existing Law
Contrast with
Content provenance (C2PA)
Source
1 numbered reference, listed below

Where it is used

4 chapters of the Body of Knowledge use the term. Each link opens the first section that does.

Patterns that use this term

One pattern page uses the term.

  • Watermarking

    Embedding a signal in generated content (image, audio, video or text) that a detector can later read to identify it as AI-generated.

  • AI Act (EU)

    Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, the EU's horizontal, risk-tiered law for AI, amended by the Digital Omnibus.

  • Deployer

    Under the EU AI Act, whoever uses an AI system under its own authority, other than in a purely personal, non-professional activity.

Sources

  1. [1] Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act), consolidated text as amended by Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 (Digital Omnibus on AI, in force 27 Jul 2026; definitions in Art. 3, incl. 3(1), 3(3) to 3(14), 3(14b), 3(20), 3(22), 3(23), 3(29) to 3(32), 3(49), 3(55) to 3(57), 3(60), 3(61), 3(63), 3(68); Arts. 4, 5, 6 (incl. 6(3) third subparagraph, profiling), 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 22 to 27 (incl. 26(11)), 40, 41, 43, 47, 48, 50, 53 (incl. 53(1)(c)), 55, 57, 60, 72, 73, 86; Annexes I, III, IV). Publications Office of the EU (EUR-Lex). 2026-07-27. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/2026-07-27/eng (verified: primary)

Definitions of legal terms paraphrase the cited text, which governs. Dated statements are as of .

Cite this term

García Aibar, J. (2026). Deepfake. In AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis & Body of Knowledge (v0.5.0), Glossary. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197. https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/deepfake. CC BY 4.0

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026deepfake,
  author  = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title   = {{Deepfake}},
  note    = {Glossary, AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis \& Body of Knowledge, version 0.5.0},
  year    = {2026},
  doi     = {10.5281/zenodo.22956197},
  url     = {https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/deepfake}
}