Login | May 17, 2025
Next steps in AI and digital manipulation: Fake evidence
RICHARD WEINER
Technology for Lawyers
Published: May 16, 2025
Yep. The era of fake case evidence is (or may be) upon us. The elder legal generation may consider this a good time to think about retirement. The rest of the profession is going to have to start dealing with this.
Faking evidence probably has happened in cases here and there. But it was hard to do, a fact that is called the “filter of effort.” Today, though, with the proliferation of AI-generated content and increasingly sophisticated digital manipulation, that filter is becoming more and more torn, as digital evidence is increasingly easy to manipulate.
Counsel, judges and legal staff now have to pay attention to all manner of potential sneaky fake materials in order to make sure that what the court sees is actual evidence.
There are about four types of fake evidence:
• Deepfakes, which are completely synthetic, AI-generated fake videos, images and even text.
• Shallow fakes, which are modifications to authentic evidence, like altered dates or added photos in emails, etc.
• Liar’s dividend, which is that there is such a proliferation of fake stuff out there that parties can contend that real evidence is fake; and
• Good old fabricated evidence, like falsified legal documents.
Beyond that, transferring documents from one format to another (Word to pdf, for instance) can obscure metadata such that a trustworthy document can look untrustworthy.
So, beyond obtaining evidence, legal staff has to be able to identify if it’s fake, or if it looks fake but is actually authentic. And that takes an attitude of almost assuming evidence is fake now, and then working backwards to make sure that it isn’t. Check and see. Is the evidence too good to be true? Is there an original source for metadata or a picture (like on someone’s phone)? Is there missing evidence with a complicated backstory?
Do half of the people in a photo have six fingers?
Once potentially fake evidence is determined, test it. Is there a secondary source? Do a metadata analysis. Pay for digital forensics. And request originals.
But mostly, just be aware that this is a real problem going forward, and take all precautions.
Thanks to Scott A. Milner at Morgan Lewis & Brockius, along with Daniel Regard of iDiscovery for their insight.