Exploring the Janus Face of Synthetic Images: From Privacy-secure Biometrics Applications to Deepfake Detection for Misinformation-Free Social Networks

The rise of generative AI presents a profound duality, or a ''Janus Face,'' for digital society. On one hand, its ability to synthesize hyper-realistic faces offers a powerful solution to long-standing privacy and data scarcity challenges in biometric systems---a promising but underexplored application. On the other hand, this same technology is weaponized to create 'deepfakes' that fuel misinformation campaigns on Online Social Networks (OSNs), posing a significant threat to digital integrity.