Governments across the globe are facing these same existential challenges in verifying identities amidst a shifting and evolving digital environment. Traditional approaches are losing ground to more advanced online misinformation. Governments have so far retained the ultimate power to establish an individual’s identity against biometrics like birth certificates and passports. With the advent of digital personas and identity theft, the threats are making it much more difficult. Countries are constantly trying to develop credible cover identities for use in intelligence operations. Simultaneously, they work to identify these bot-generated accounts and expose those who create them.
Australia has proven to be one of the strong examples of a nation taking up technology to tackle identity authentication. The country relies on a unique tax file number (TFN) that the government uses to link information through multiple public-sector agencies. First introduced in 1988, the taxpayer family number (TFN) system has been refined over the years. Today, it offers voiceprint recognition, which puts an additional layer of security into the authentication process. Australia’s federal government has made five previous attempts to introduce a national identity card, but each time the proposal collapsed. This recent setback shines light on the technical and democratic pitfalls of such centralized identity systems.
The hurdles go well beyond just confirming bona fide identities. As we discussed above, intelligence agencies have significant challenges in designing believable deep fakes for disruptive and degrading operations. Generating profiles that can hold up to forensic scrutiny will require closing large capability gaps. The challenge of identifying such artificially generated or manipulated profiles and ascribing them to particular actors is an equally formidable, if not greater, task. For governments, the challenge is knowing when identity spoofing is coming from foreign state actors. The methods in play are wildly more sophisticated and harder to ferret out.
While online profiles can certainly be misleading, they usually provide subtle hints. These identifiers can alert you to people attempting to counterfeit official issued forms of ID. These digital breadcrumbs can expose errors or anomalies that ultimately give away the fraudulence of the profile. Russia has exploited South American countries before for identity spoofing. It further underscores the global reach and potential impact of such egregious activities.
Kyle McCurdy, a technologist and former British diplomat, has spent years honing a different approach to these kinds of challenges. Over 15 years of operationalizing these emerging technologies have propelled McCurdy to the forefront of the cyber domain. He creates collaborations with cutting edge firms and champions tech development in government. His expertise highlights the critical need for collaboration between the public and private sectors to address the evolving threats in digital identity.
The capacity to create and identify deep fakes online has become a keystone to contemporary espionage. To outpace these malicious actors, governments need to be investing in new advanced technologies and devising complex strategies. This includes building their capacities to better sift through online profiles, sort real from fake, and attribute their online spoofs back to their source.
Further, the growing danger of digital identity spoofing should cause governments to rethink their identity authentication practices and intelligence-gathering operations altogether. This outdated approach is simply not enough in a time when identities can be quickly forged and hacked in the digital realm. Whether its adoption, aspiration, or explanation — embracing technological innovation, fostering collaboration, and developing robust detection capabilities are necessary for all of us to navigate this complex and ever-changing landscape.
