What was claimed
The video shows British Border Force officers intercepting, securing and transporting migrants from a small boat.
our verdict
This video is fake. Made using artificial intelligence (AI).
A video that has been viewed more than 230,000 times falsely claims to show the moment migrants in a small boat are stopped and “secured” by Border Force agents. However, this video is a fake created by AI.
The 18-second clip was shared on Facebook with the caption, “Morning Interception: Migrants secured and removed by Border Patrol agents.”
The video has received over 2,000 comments, with many people apparently believing it to be real. The film contains two scenes, the first showing a dinghy full of men wearing life jackets next to a large boat with the words ‘Border Force’ written on it, and the second showing men wearing life jackets being taken ashore by uniformed officers in front of a police van.
At times, the audio on the clip appears to be someone speaking over the radio, saying, “Target vessel in sight. Currently closed. All units on standby,” and also, “Embarkation team on the move. Place your hands where they can be seen. Secure and transport underway.”
However, there are some clues that the footage is not real and was created entirely by artificial intelligence (AI).
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Both the audio and video in this video were found to contain SynthID, a digital watermark added to products created or modified with Google’s AI tools.
Although the presence of this watermark does not tell us whether AI was used to generate something completely new or modify existing content, there are other signs that this video was generated entirely by AI.
These include what appears to be a Border Patrol boat, a police van, and garbled text on officers’ uniforms.
The faces of the men and Border Force personnel depicted on the boat are also unnaturally disturbed and distorted throughout the video. You can see the rope moving unnaturally around the 9 second mark.
We recently debunked another similar AI fake that purported to show scenes of migrants in small boats and dinghies in the English Channel.
But hundreds of migrants have been crossing the Channel in small boats in recent days, and there is also genuine recent footage of British Border Force intercepting boats carrying migrants in the Channel and people wearing life jackets disembarking in Britain.
Before sharing such clips, first consider whether they come from verifiable and trustworthy sources. Our guide to identifying AI content and our toolkit on how to identify malicious information can help you do this.
