3076/2026/WEB 'Innovative trends in deepfake detection'

The aim of the webinar is to provide law enforcement officers with a clear, non-technical introduction to deepfakes, their risks, and the current landscape of detection methods, and to explain how these threats affect investigations and court proceedings. It will also present physics and signal-based detection approaches that are explainable, less dependent on training data than many machine learning tools, and suitable for use as part of evidential workflows. 

By the end of this webinar, the audience will be able to:

• Explain what audio and image deepfakes are, how they are produced, and why they pose a risk to investigations and courts;
• Recognise the main categories of existing deepfake detection methods, including human review, metadata analysis, AI/ML based tools and physics /signal based approaches;
• Describe the basic idea of physics based detection models as an explainable alternative to purely data driven machine learning;
• Understand basic detection outputs such as probability scores, heat maps, waveforms, and spectrograms used in deepfake analysis;
• Identify practical law enforcement use cases where explainable deepfake detection can support investigations, evidence presentation, and judicial decision making.

EMPACT training activity

Combatting new forms of organised crime requires more cooperation between police and gendarmes, customs officers, border guards, judges, and prosecutors. EU institutions, agencies and Member States work together to tackle organised and serious international crime through a permanent and key instrument: the European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats (EMPACT).

CEPOL plays a crucial role in the EMPACT mechanism through the provision of specialised training and the identification of training needs within each common security threat. Every year, CEPOL provides a comprehensive training package for each common EU crime priority consisting of onsite, online and exchange training activities.

Check more of CEPOL's EMPACT training activities here.