Australian media organisation, SBS News, has consulted several experts on the sex clips implicating Economic Affairs Minister Azmin Ali.
At least two experts have questioned claims that the video clips were doctored using artificial intelligence technology or what has come to be known as “deepfake”.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Kevin Nguyen, who previously provided content verification for news giants such as the BBC and New York Times, came to this conclusion after analysing three videos.
“At an image level, forensically it checks out. I ran a number of forensic analyses…across the three videos and at the six points I checked there was no evidence of photo or image manipulation,” he told SBS News.
The digital forensics expert did not rule out the videos as being deepfake but said if they were, they were “very good”.
Siwei Lyu, a media forensics expert and professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Albany in the US, also concluded that the video clips could not have been fabricated.
“Barring the compression artefacts, there is no definite trace of deepfake algorithms such as inconsistent face orientations, or ‘floating’ of faces,” he said.
Video verification expert Denby Weller from the University of Technology Sydney said the clip could have been recorded using a mobile phone, but doubted if it was done discreetly.
“It’s been shot in portrait mode on a phone by the looks of it, although that look can be artificially created in post-production,” Weller said.
She said the video was shot from a slightly elevated position, which is not easy to do without the use of a tripod.
“It has also been shot from a slightly elevated position (the height of the camera is very hard to fake), which would indicate that the phone was pointing slightly downwards at the men,” she added.
Another expert Giorgio Patrini, CEO of Australian company Deeptrace, said the quality of the videos was too low for a conclusive analysis.
Patrini’s firm deals with authenticating deepfake videos.
“None of the analysts could confirm that Mr Azmin is the man in the video, they only concluded the video appears to not have been digitally altered,” read the report.