LAST UPDATE | 11 Sep 2025

FAKE VIDEOS OF presidential candidate Heather Humphreys promoting an online trading platform have been removed by Meta. 

The videos, which have circulated in recent days, cloned the Fine Gael politician’s image and voice using deepfake technology.

The footage falsely portrayed an RTÉ News segment in which ‘Humphreys’ endorsed an investment platform, Quantum AI.

The fake videos of Humphreys have primarily circulated Meta social media platforms Instagram and Facebook, Bank of Ireland said. 

A spokesman for Humphreys said today that the fake videos had been reported to Meta, and called for them to be removed from the social media platforms “immediately”.

“Unfortunately, there are people and entities that produce these fakes during elections and we would encourage voters in the weeks ahead to consider everything they see online carefully and check trusted news sources,” the spokesman said.

In a statement this evening, a spokesperson for Meta confirmed that the videos have been taken down. 

“Scammers are relentless and continuously evolve their tactics to try to evade detection, which is why we’re constantly developing new ways to make it harder for scammers to deceive others – including using facial recognition technology,” the spokesperson said.

“It’s against our policies to run ads that use public figures in a deceptive way to try to scam people, and we remove these types of ads when we become aware of them – as we have done in this case.”

‘Deeply concerning’

The Central Bank of Ireland warned last year that Quantum AI claims to provide cryptocurrency trading services using AI technology, and uses AI-generated deepfake videos, fake newspaper articles and photos of high-profile people through social media to “deceive the public into believing that this fraudulent entity is legitimate and to promote [its] activity.”

Quantum AI is not registered to provide virtual asset services in Ireland.

Bank of Ireland warned that more of these types of online videos are expected to appear on social media in the coming weeks. 

Head of Fraud at Bank of Ireland, Nicola Sadlier, called the videos “deeply concerning” and urged the public to not interact with this dubious online content. 

“We are witnessing an ongoing spate of scams that exploit public trust in well-known figures. These videos are highly convincing, designed to lure unsuspecting individuals into fraudulent schemes. If you see such content, do not engage,” Sadlier said. 

The fraudulent videos of Humphreys follow reports by Irish economist David McWilliams that his likeness has been similarly used in several fake social media advertisements in recent months, describing it as a “criminal enterprise”. 

“Innocent people are getting frauded into this, [they are] saying, ‘Yes, we know David, if he’s done this, we may as well get involved in it’,” McWilliams said.

Deepfake technology has been used by fraudsters in recent years to artificially depict Irish celebrities promoting their products and services, such as cryptocurrency platforms. This AI-generated content has also been used to push false stories about Irish public figures.

In July, images of actor Brendan Gleeson, journalist Sharon Tobin and TCD scientist Luke O’Neill were used in a hoax medicine ad posted to Facebook, where it was viewed tens of thousands of times.