@InProceedings{	  medingsorge25deepfake,
  title		= {{What constitutes a Deep Fake? The blurry line between
		  legitimate processing and manipulation under the EU AI Act
		  }},
  author	= {Kristof Meding AND Christoph Sorge},
  year		= {2025},
  isbn		= {9798400714214},
  publisher	= {Association for Computing Machinery},
  address	= {New York, NY, USA},
  doi		= {10.1145/3709025.3712218},
  abstract	= {When does a digital image resemble reality? The relevance
		  of this question increases as the generation of synthetic
		  images---so-called deep fakes---becomes increasingly
		  popular. Deep fakes have gained much attention for a number
		  of reasons---among others, due to their potential to
		  disrupt the political climate. In order to mitigate these
		  threats, the EU AI Act implements specific transparency
		  regulations for generating synthetic content or
		  manipulating existing content. However, the distinction
		  between real and synthetic images is--- even from a
		  computer vision perspective---far from trivial. We argue
		  that the current definition of deep fakes in the AI Act and
		  the corresponding obligations are not sufficiently
		  specified to tackle the challenges posed by deep fakes. By
		  analyzing the life cycle of a digital photo from the camera
		  sensor to the digital editing features, we find that: (1.)
		  Deep fakes are ill-defined in the EU AI Act. The definition
		  leaves too much scope for what a deep fake is. (2.) It is
		  unclear how editing functions like Google's "best take"
		  feature can be considered as an exception to transparency
		  obligations. (3.) The exception for substantially edited
		  images raises questions about what constitutes substantial
		  editing of content and whether or not this editing must be
		  perceptible by a natural person.Our results demonstrate
		  that complying with the current AI Act transparency
		  obligations is difficult for providers and deployers. As a
		  consequence of the unclear provisions, there is a risk that
		  exceptions may be either too broad or too limited. We
		  intend our analysis to foster the discussion on what
		  constitutes a deep fake and to raise awareness about the
		  pitfalls in the current AI Act transparency obligations.},
  booktitle	= {Proceedings of the 2025 Symposium on Computer Science and
		  Law},
  pages		= {152--159},
  keywords	= {Deep Fakes, EU AI Act, Image Processing, Legal Aspects,
		  Transparency Regulations},
  url		= {https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3709025.3712218}
}