Spotting the Fakes: A Simple Senior's Guide to Deepfakes and AI Voice Clones

Artificial intelligence can now imitate a face, a voice or a way of speaking with very little material to work from. A few seconds of audio from a video call or a social media post can be enough to produce a voice that sounds convincing. That is what people mean by a "deepfake": a video, an image or an audio clip made or altered by AI so that someone appears to say or do something they never did.

The good news is that you do not need to understand the technology to protect yourself. What protects you is a habit, not a skill. Here is how it works.

1. Why this matters for older adults

Deepfakes are rarely used just for fun. They are increasingly used for scams, and older adults are a deliberate target — often because criminals assume they will act quickly out of concern for a family member.

The most common pattern is the urgent call. You receive a phone call or a voice message from someone who sounds exactly like your son, your daughter or your grandchild. They are in trouble. They have had an accident, lost their phone, or need money right now. The voice is familiar, the fear is real, and the request is urgent. Everything about the call is designed to stop you from thinking.

Other variants include video messages from someone who looks like a bank employee, a doctor or a public official, and adverts featuring well-known faces recommending an investment.

2. Learn the three warning signs

You do not need to detect the fake. You need to recognise the situation. Almost every AI-assisted scam has at least one of these three ingredients:

• Urgency. You are told to act immediately and there is no time to check.
• Secrecy. You are asked not to tell anyone else in the family.
• Money or data. You are asked for a transfer, a card number, a bank code or a verification code.

If any of these appear, treat the message as false until you have proof otherwise. A real family member will not mind you checking. A criminal will.

3. Use the call-back rule

This is the single most effective protection, and it costs nothing.

Hang up. Then call the person back yourself, using the number you already have saved in your phone. Never use the number that called you or a number given to you during the call.

If you cannot reach them, call another relative. Two minutes of checking undoes hours of preparation by a scammer.

4. Agree on a family safe word

Choose a short word or question that only your close family knows — something not published anywhere online and not connected to a birthday, a pet's name or an address. If a call sounds urgent, ask for it.

An AI voice clone can copy how your grandchild sounds. It cannot know what you agreed at Sunday lunch.

5. Look and listen with a little more attention

There are still tells, although they are disappearing as the technology improves, so treat them as clues rather than proof:

• In video, watch the mouth, the blinking and the edges of the hair or glasses. Look for a face that stays oddly still, or lighting on the face that does not match the room.
• In audio, listen for a flat rhythm, unnatural pauses, missing background noise, or a voice that never hesitates or stumbles the way people normally do.
• In images, check hands, ears, jewellery, and any text in the background.

If something feels slightly wrong, that feeling is worth acting on.

6. What to do if it happens to you

Do not feel embarrassed — these attempts are engineered by professionals and they fool people of every age and background.

If you receive a call or message using the voice or image of someone you know:

• Stop the conversation and do not send money or share personal or banking details.
• Contact the person yourself, using the phone number you already have for them. Do not use a number supplied by the caller.
• If you have already sent money, contact your bank immediately and explain that you may have been the victim of fraud.
• Report the incident using the appropriate service in your country:

🇪🇸 Spain: Contact INCIBE’s Cybersecurity Helpline on 017 for advice. INCIBE specifically deals with AI voice-cloning scams and has published a case involving a caller using an AI-generated version of a family member’s voice. Its advice includes contacting the supposed caller separately to confirm their identity and agreeing a family safe word.

🇮🇪 Ireland: Contact your bank immediately if money or banking information has been shared, and report the fraud or attempted fraud to your local Garda station. An Garda Síochána classifies fraudulent phone calls as vishing and advises people to independently verify the caller rather than trusting the contact details they provide. Even attempted fraud should be reported.

🇩🇰 Denmark: Call the Cyberhotline for Digital Security on 33 37 00 37 if you have transferred money or are unsure what to do next, and report the scam to the police. Denmark’s official SikkerDigital guidance specifically covers the “person you know in trouble” scam, where someone pretends to be a friend or relative who urgently needs help.

🇸🇪 Sweden: Contact your bank immediately and call the Swedish Police on 114 14 to report the fraud. Swedish Police guidance on telephone fraud specifically warns that scammers may pretend to be a relative and claim that the relative is in trouble. It advises people to hang up if they are unsure who is calling. Call 112 only if the crime is happening at that moment or urgent police assistance is required.

• Finally, tell a family member or someone you trust what happened. Sharing the experience can help protect other people from receiving the same type of call. 

A friendly reminder

You do not have to keep up with AI to stay safe from it. You only have to slow down. Hang up, call back, ask the safe word, tell someone. That is the whole method.

At AI4S we believe older adults have every right to learn about AI and benefit from it — including the right to know how it is being misused. Learning to spot the fakes is not about fearing technology. It is about using it with confidence.