Latest news with #Denmark
Times
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Times
Danish citizens to ‘own their own faces' to prevent deepfakes
Denmark plans to become the first country in the world to give its citizens copyright over their faces and voices in an effort to clamp down on 'deepfakes' — videos, audio clips and images that are digitally doctored to spread false information. In recent years the tools for making deepfakes, including artificial intelligence-assisted editing software, have become so sophisticated and ubiquitous that it takes not much more than a few clicks of a mouse to create them. They are already endemic in the political sphere and were deployed during recent election campaigns in Slovakia, Turkey, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Argentina. The former US president Joe Biden was subjected to an audio deepfake during the Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire last year. In November an MP from the German Social Democratic party was reprimanded for posting a deepfake video of Friedrich Merz, the conservative leader and future chancellor, saying that his party 'despised' the electorate. The Danish culture ministry said it would soon no longer be possible to distinguish between real and deepfake material. That in turn would undermine trust in authentic pictures and videos, it warned. 'Since images and videos swiftly become embedded in people's subconscious, digitally manipulated versions of an image or video can establish fundamental doubts and perhaps even a completely wrong perception of genuine depictions of reality.' There is now broad cross-party support in Denmark's parliament for a reform to the copyright law that would make it illegal to share deepfakes. The bill includes a special protection for musicians and performing artists against digital imitations. 'We are now sending an unequivocal signal to all citizens that you have the right to your own body, your own voice and your own facial features,' said Jakob Engel-Schmidt, the culture minister. Lars Christian Lilleholt, the parliamentary leader of the Danish Liberal party, which is part of the ruling coalition, said AI tools had made it alarmingly easy to impersonate politicians and celebrities and to exploit their aura of credibility to propagate false claims. 'It is not just harmful to the individual who has their identity stolen,' he said. 'It is harmful to democracy as a whole when we cannot trust what we see.' The reform will include an exemption for parody and satire. This is a thorny area: several studies suggest a large proportion of political deepfakes are humorous or harmless rather than malicious. There are some experts who warn that concern about the phenomenon risks tipping over into a moral panic. In April last year Mette Frederiksen, Denmark's Social Democratic prime minister, was targeted with an AI-generated deepfake that fell into this grey area. After her government announced that it was abolishing a Christian public holiday, the right-wing populist Danish People's Party released a video of a fake press conference where Frederiksen appeared to say she would scrap all the other religious holidays, including Easter and Christmas. The clip, which was presented as a dream sequence and clearly labelled as AI-manipulated content, prompted debate about the acceptable boundaries of the technology.
Asharq Al-Awsat
7 hours ago
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Danish General Says He Is Not Losing Sleep over US Plans for Greenland
The head of Denmark's Arctic command said the prospect of a US takeover of Greenland was not keeping him up at night after talks with a senior US general last week but that more must be done to deter any Russian attack on the Arctic island. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested the United States might acquire Greenland, a vast semi-autonomous Danish territory on the shortest route between North America and Europe vital for the US ballistic missile warning system. Trump has not ruled out taking the territory by force and, at a congressional hearing this month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did not deny that such contingency plans exist. Such a scenario "is absolutely not on my mind," Soren Andersen, head of Denmark's Joint Arctic Command, told Reuters in an interview, days after what he said was his first meeting with the general overseeing US defense of the area. "I sleep perfectly well at night," Anderson said. "Militarily, we work together, as we always have." US General Gregory Guillot visited the US Pituffik Space Base in Greenland on June 19-20 for the first time since the US moved Greenland oversight to the Northern command from its European command, the Northern Command said on Tuesday. Andersen's interview with Reuters on Wednesday were his first detailed comments to media since his talks with Guillot, which coincided with Danish military exercises on Greenland involving one of its largest military presences since the Cold War. Russian and Chinese state vessels have appeared unexpectedly around Greenland in the past and the Trump administration has accused Denmark of failing to keep it safe from potential incursions. Both countries have denied any such plans. Andersen said the threat level to Greenland had not increased this year. "We don't see Russian or Chinese state ships up here," he said. DOG SLED PATROLS Denmark's permanent presence consists of four ageing inspection vessels, a small surveillance plane, and dog sled patrols tasked with monitoring an area four times the size of France. Previously focused on demonstrating its presence and civilian tasks like search and rescue, and fishing inspection, the Joint Arctic Command is now shifting more towards territorial defense, Andersen said. "In reality, Greenland is not that difficult to defend," he said. "Relatively few points need defending, and of course, we have a plan for that. NATO has a plan for that." As part of the military exercises this month, Denmark has deployed a frigate, F-16s, special forces and extra troops, and increased surveillance around critical infrastructure. They would leave next week when the exercises end, Andersen said, adding that he would like to repeat them in the coming months. "To keep this area conflict-free, we have to do more, we need to have a credible deterrent," he said. "If Russia starts to change its behavior around Greenland, I have to be able to act on it." In January, Denmark pledged over $2 billion to strengthen its Arctic defense, including new Arctic navy vessels, long-range drones, and satellite coverage. France offered to deploy troops to Greenland and EU's top military official said it made sense to station troops from EU countries there. Around 20,000 people live in the capital Nuuk, with the rest of Greenland's 57,000 population spread across 71 towns, mostly on the west coast. The lack of infrastructure elsewhere is a deterrent in itself, Andersen said. "If, for example, there were to be a Russian naval landing on the east coast, I think it wouldn't be long before such a military operation would turn into a rescue mission," he said.
Times
12 hours ago
- Business
- Times
Oresund Bridge is £58 to cross. Is the toll just daylight robbery?
For four centuries the Oresund, a strait between Denmark and Sweden that is the gateway to the Baltic Sea, was a geopolitical chokepoint. The Danish kings would routinely top up their treasury by extorting transit fees from passing ships. In 1658 the Swedes got their own back by crossing the frozen waters and surrounding Copenhagen. Urban legend holds that there is still a law on Denmark's statute books that permits loyal Danes to take up a cudgel and bash any Swede attempting to traverse the ice. The sound last became passable on foot in 1996 but no heads were staved in. Four years after that, though, Sweden and Denmark opened a five-mile, €2.6 billion bridge across the strait, whose 25th birthday falls on Tuesday. The kings and queens of both countries will mark the occasion by travelling in a convoy from the Swedish side to the Danish one, pausing halfway on the island of Peberholm. The bridge has become a symbol of European integration, all but turning Copenhagen and the Swedish port of Malmo on the other side of the water into a single conurbation. 'There is a before and after the bridge,' said Linus Eriksson, the chief executive of the company that runs it. 'Before the bridge, Malmo was a town in crisis. Even Copenhagen had a tough situation. Both cities had a tough situation with poor growth. Now it's a totally different region economically.' The crossing was also made famous from Tijuana to Bulawayo by The Bridge, a noirish crime drama in which a chilly Swedish detective called Saga Noren and her Danish partner Martin Rohde solved a series of grisly trans-strait murders. Now, however, many commuters who bought into the dream of living in one country and working in the other are complaining of what they regard as a lower-level but higher-volume crime: daylight robbery. • How Swedish gangs are exporting young contract killers across Scandinavia Weeks before the anniversary, the basic price for a one-way car journey across the bridge has been jacked up to 510 Danish kroner, or £58. For the largest vans, it is the equivalent of £218. Research by Sydsvenskan, a regional newspaper in southern Sweden, suggests this is by far the most expensive bridge toll on the planet, costing about twice as much as its nearest rivals in Japan and Canada. Tommy Frandsen, a Danish warehouse manager, is the embodiment of the Oresund ideal. He lives in Staffanstorp, a Swedish town 12 miles from the bridge, and commutes across it every weekday to his workplace on the Danish side. Even though he gets a reduced rate, this now costs him nearly £350 a month, or slightly more than 10 per cent of his salary after tax. 'I feel like it's terrible because they raise the prices every year,' Frandsen said. 'The ferry is not an option. The train is not a possibility because I live out in the country and there's no trains from here.' Aravin Chakravarthi, who is based in Malmo but works in Hedehusene, Denmark, said he could not afford to traverse the bridge by car and was forced to take longer rail journeys instead. 'I don't drive by car because of the bridge toll, even on desperate days when I'm juggling tight schedules to drop off or pick up my two kids,' he said. Although the bridge consortium is jointly owned by the Swedish and Danish states, it is financed with sizeable loans, which have to be paid back. The toll is also linked by law to the cost of the privately operated ferry that runs between Helsingor and Helsingborg further up the strait, to protect the commercial viability of the latter. 'We are state-owned, so we would not be able to cut the price by half because then the commercially operated ferry company would complain or even sue us,' said Eriksson. Despite the vehicle toll, the total number of people crossing the Oresund by car, train or ferry hit a record 38 million last year, equivalent to about 105,000 trips a day. A one-way railway journey between central Copenhagen and Malmo typically costs only £13. Locals' sentimental attachment to the bridge remains largely undiminished. 'It has created love relationships. It has created party culture and university research,' said Niels Paarup-Petersen, a Swedish Centre Party MP from Malmo. 'There are such gains that have actually become a reality because of the bridge.'
Washington Post
12 hours ago
- Politics
- Washington Post
Denmark seeks to make it illegal to spread deepfake images, citing concern about misinformation
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Denmark is taking steps toward enacting a ban on the use of 'deepfake' imagery online, saying such digital manipulations can stir doubts about reality and foster misinformation. The government said in a statement published Thursday that a 'broad cross section' of parties in parliament support greater protections against deepfakes and a planned bill is expected to make it illegal to share them or other digital imitations of personal characteristics.
The Independent
12 hours ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Denmark seeks to make it illegal to spread deepfake images, citing concern about misinformation
Denmark is taking steps toward enacting a ban on the use of 'deepfake' imagery online, saying such digital manipulations can stir doubts about reality and foster misinformation. The government said in a statement published Thursday that a 'broad cross section' of parties in parliament support greater protections against deepfakes and a planned bill is expected to make it illegal to share them or other digital imitations of personal characteristics. Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt, in a statement, said that it was 'high time that we now create a safeguard against the spread of misinformation and at the same time send a clear signal to the tech giants.' Officials said the measures are believed to be among the most extensive steps yet taken by a government to combat misinformation through deepfakes, which refers to highly realistic but fabricated content created by artificial intelligence tools. Deepfakes usually come in the form of pictures or video but can also be audio. They can make it appear that someone said or did something that they didn't actually say or do. Famous figures who have been depicted in deepfakes include Taylor Swift and Pope Francis. Authorities in different countries have taken varying approaches to tackling deepfakes, but they've mostly focused on sexually explicit images. U.S. President Donald Trump signed bipartisan legislation in May that makes it illegal to knowingly publish or threaten to publish intimate images without a person's consent, including deepfakes. Last year, South Korea rolled out measures to curb deepfake porn, including harsher punishment and stepped up regulations for social media platforms. Supporters of the Danish idea say that as technology advances, it will soon be impossible for people online to distinguish between real and manipulated material. 'Since images and videos also quickly become embedded in people's subconscious, digitally manipulated versions of an image or video can create fundamental doubts about — and perhaps even a completely wrong perception of — what are genuine depictions of reality,' an English translation of a ministry statement said. 'The agreement is therefore intended to ensure the right to one's own body and voice.' The proposal would still allow for 'parodies and satire' — though the ministry didn't specify how that would be determined. It said that the rules would only apply in Denmark, and violators wouldn't be subject to fines or imprisonment — even if some 'compensation' could be warranted. The ministry said that a proposal will be made to amend Danish law on the issue this summer with an aim toward passage late this year or in early 2026. Any changes must abide by the country's international obligations and European Union law, it said.
