A chance meeting 18 years ago of two dads dropping off their kids for kindergarten has started a technology journey that may change the face of protection against online harm.
Praveen Varshney and Charles Gadalla are partners in a new company called Verifiction, based in Vancouver, offers the first service that will provide the ability to fully address cases involving non-consensual private videos without additional tools or systems.
Digital images, voices, videos, or text manipulated or generated by artificial intelligence have recently become widespread. Celebrities, businesses, and students are increasingly targeted by those who use this technology for extortion, manipulation, or reputation damage.
Verifiction, which is a registered member of the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), uses 17 different algorithms monitoring factors from blood flow to light sensitivity to determine the likelihood of content being real or fake.
“I think we found something that perfectly aligns with new efforts by the government of Canada that were announced on February 26 to protect people from the serious threat of deepfakes,” said Varshney, Principal Partner of Varshney Capital, which specializes in investing in technology and social impact ventures.
Gadalla, who is CEO of Verifiction, previously worked in senior product development capacities with tech companies around the world, including seven years with SAP.
Collaborating with international partners in India, Germany and the United States, Verifiction has created a team of world-leading computer scientists that are meeting the growing threat of deepfakes head-on.
“We offer a 95 per cent accuracy score on every video,” said Gadalla. “We are now prepared to provide it to those who need it most.”
Verifiction is now working with universities and global news agencies to find early adopters who will utilize the project and promote it to others. One of the first people they spoke to was Kate White, Senior Associate Dean, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Sustainability at the UBC Sauder School of Business.
“Departments like mine are working every day to achieve equity, diversity and inclusion. Hopefully this technology will help bring that closer,” said Professor White. “What I was particularly impressed with was the potential of Verifiction to give consumers a real sense of security of their identity.”
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