AI-generated pictures: 'We understand how they did it' – INEC reveals these accountable

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has recognized a few of its registration officers throughout the nation as liable for irregularities involving suspected synthetic intelligence-generated pictures and questionable entries within the preliminary voters’ register.

INEC’s Director of Information and Communication Technology, ICT, Dr Lawrence Bayode, disclosed this on Friday whereas fielding questions on Arise Television’s Morning Show.

Bayode defined that some registration officers allegedly used their official login particulars to introduce irregularities into the voter registration system.

According to him, the fee found that the issue was not restricted to at least one location, as some registration officers throughout totally different states have been concerned in questionable registration practices.

“I can tell you how this AI-generated photo found its way onto the register. Number one, you know we have registration officers on the field, and these registration officers have login details to log into the system.

“So, what we have found out was that some of these registration officers are not only in the place that we are seeing, even on social media, some of them, not all of them now, some of them across the states, nationwide. They’ve done different things to bring these irregularities onto the register,” he mentioned.

The INEC director defined that the fee’s Automated Biometric System, ABS, detected a number of questionable entries earlier than the publication of the preliminary voters’ register.

He mentioned the fee had been working to wash up the register whereas making an attempt to fulfill the statutory 90-day deadline for publishing the preliminary register.

Bayode, nonetheless, clarified that not all of the questionable pictures have been generated by synthetic intelligence, noting that some resulted from poor registration practices.

“Some of these pictures are AI-generated. Some of them are not AI-generated, but very bad registration, and this thing got into the register by the registration officers, and because they have access to register people,” he added.

He additional disclosed that the fee had recognized how a number of the irregularities have been launched into the system by means of its automated checks.

“When the ABS was run on the system, we saw these people, we know what they did. We know how they did it, but honestly, I don’t know why,” Bayode mentioned.

DAILY POST experiences that the controversy over suspected AI-generated pictures and questionable identities in INEC’s preliminary voters’ register has triggered considerations amongst political stakeholders forward of the 2027 common elections.