Deepfakes in Criminal Investigations: Interdisciplinary Research Directions for CMC Research

The emergence of deepfake technologies offers both opportunities and significant challenges. While commonly associated with deception, misinformation, and fraud, deepfakes may also enable novel applications in high-stakes contexts such as criminal investigations. However, these applications raise complex technological, ethical, and legal questions. We adopt an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on computer science, philosophy, and law, to examine what it takes to responsibly use deepfakes in criminal investigations and argue that computer-mediated communication (CMC) research, especially based on social media corpora, can provide crucial insights for understanding the potential harms and benefits of deepfakes. Our analysis outlines key research directions for the CMC community and underscores the need for interdisciplinary collaboration in this evolving domain.