Study: More than half of Dutch people can’t tell the difference between a real voice and a cloned voice of someone they know | News report

News | 19-06-2024 | 06:15

this The vast majority of Dutch people occasionally receive misleading text messages and emails from cybercriminals pretending to be someone they know or trust. Cybercriminals have discovered that they can use artificial BroadCast Unitedligence (AI) to clone voices and make them sound real. According to new government research conducted in collaboration with radio presenter Ruud de Wild, voice cloning technology has now advanced to the point where many people cannot distinguish between real and cloned voice clips. More than half of Dutch people cannot distinguish between cloned and real voices of people they know. This is worrying because cybercriminals in other countries are already using this technology to deceive people. The government is using the Don’t be fooled on the internet (Don’t let yourself get hacked) campaign, urging everyone to be wary of online scams and to always double-check the identity of the sender of a (voice) message or conversation, even if they appear to be an acquaintance who needs help.

An extreme form of online deception

Thanks to the easy availability and low cost of online AI programs, it has become easy to copy a person’s voice. In English-speaking countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, cybercriminals are already using voice cloning technology for malicious purposes to impersonate people that potential victims may know. Given that voice cloning programs can now imitate the Dutch voice very realistically, the government expects this extreme form of cyber deception to soon rear its head here as well.

Luther de Wilde

Only 4% of the study subjects were convinced that the cloned voice clip of radio presenter Ruud de Wild was fake. Even when they knew they might hear a cloned voice clip, only half were able to distinguish between the original and the cloned version. Thus, more than four in five Dutch people (83%) admit that it is difficult to distinguish whether the voice of someone they know is real or cloned. Likewise, a large proportion of Dutch people (83%) believe that voice cloning technology will be used in the future to imitate others and thus deceive people.

“The fact that the voice of someone like me who makes a living from it can be copied is scary enough. But it’s even scarier if it can also happen to the voice of a friend or family member,” said Ruud de Wilde.

measure

Cybercriminals are good at exploiting human characteristics, especially in tense or unusual situations where people may have difficulty seeing through their lies. Be wary if a voice message or (online) conversation sounds emotional or urgent, or involves something serious or that seems too good to be true.

As Manon den Dunnen, the police’s strategic digital expert, explains, “A simple rule of thumb is that whenever someone encourages you to make an irreversible decision, such as transferring money or sharing confidential information, you should step back and try to verify the information through other means. This can come across as rude or unpleasant, but people will start to see this as more and more normal.”

The central government advises people to do extra checks if they have any doubts about the authenticity of the sender of a voice message or conversation. The advice is as follows.

• Stop communicating with that person and contact the person you think is that person directly. However, contact them using a number that is in your contact list or a number that you know is the person’s real number.
• If you don’t have their phone number, you should try to contact them through a friend, coworker, or family member who does. In any case, you should not use the call back button, which automatically dials the number that the potential criminal used to contact you.
• Ask a question that only the person you know would know the answer to. The question shouldn’t be about your dog’s name or birthday, or something trivial. It shouldn’t be a “what” question either. Instead, the question should be about something you and that person have experienced, because any other information might be found.
• Finally, there is nothing wrong with hanging up the phone. Criminals will take advantage of your not wanting to be rude.

Research Information

The study was conducted by Verian (formerly Kantar Public) on behalf of the central government between May 6 and 12, 2024. Some of the audio clips were dubbed by radio presenter Ruud de Wild and subsequently cloned with his permission. In the first part of the study, the subjects were asked to listen to 3 cloned voice clips. In the second part, they were asked to listen to two versions of the same clip: one spoken by the real Ruud de Wild and the other by his AI clone voice. The representative sample included 1,046 Dutch people aged 18 and over.

Don’t be deceived online

The multi-year campaign, launched by the Ministries of Justice and Security and the Interior and Kingdom Relations, urges people to check the identity of senders of online messages and conversations. If in doubt, the advice is to press, click or swipe. For more information on how to recognise this type of online deception and what to do about it, visit Ratgenit Interpen.