The woman, whose video was used to create a now viral deepfake video of actor Rashmika Mandanna, has reacted to the incident. Taking to social media, the British-Indian woman said she was “deeply disturbed” and "upset" by the act.
"Hi all, it has come to my attention that someone created a deepfake video using my body and a popular Bollywood actress's face. I had no involvement with the deepfake video, and I'm deeply disturbed and upset by what is happening," the woman, Zara Patel, said in an Instagram story.
"I worry about the future of women and girls who now have to fear even more about putting themselves on social media. Please take a step back and fact-check what you see on the internet. Not everything on the internet is real," she added.
A deepfake video featuring Mandanna went viral on social media. The video shows the Pushpa actor entering an elevator. As it went viral it was found that the face of the woman in the video had been digitally altered to resemble Mandanna using the deepfake technology.
The original video belongs to Patel, a British-Indian citizen with around 4,53,000 followers on Instagram. Patel had shot the same video of herself wearing a black outfit and entering an elevator on October 9.
Reacting to the incident, Mandanna said, "I feel really hurt to share this and have to talk about the deepfake video of me being spread online. Something like this is honestly, extremely scary not only for me, but also for each one of us who today is vulnerable to so much harm because of how technology is being misused."
"Today, as a woman and as an actor, I am thankful for my family, friends and well wishers who are my protection and support system. But if this happened to me when I was in school or college, I genuinely can’t imagine how could I ever tackle this. We need to address this as a community and with urgency before more of us are affected by such identity theft," she added.
Mandanna's tweet came after Union Minister of State for Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that social media platforms need to deal with such "damaging misinformation". He also said that the Narendra Modi-led central government is "committed to ensuring safety and trust of all DigitalNagriks using internet".
Also Read: Rashmika Mandanna reacts on her viral deepfake video: 'Extremely scary not only for me'
Also Read: Rashmika Mandanna Deepfake Controversy: What is a deepfake video and how can you spot one?