# An Examination of Fairness of AI Models for Deepfake Detection

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.00558 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.00558/

## Key facts

- Cited by 35 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 20 of its 40 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 May 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 20 of 20)

- [Equality of Opportunity in Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02413/) (2016)
- [Datasheets for Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.09010/) (2018)
- [Man is to Computer Programmer as Woman is to Homemaker? Debiasing Word Embeddings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.06520/) (2016)
- [FaceForensics++: Learning to Detect Manipulated Facial Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.08971/) (2019)
- [Model Cards for Model Reporting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.03993/) (2018)
- [Joint Face Detection and Alignment using Multi-task Cascaded Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1604.02878/) (2016)
- [Face2Face: Real-time Face Capture and Reenactment of RGB Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.14808/) (2020)
- [Celeb-DF: A Large-scale Challenging Dataset for DeepFake Forensics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.12962/) (2019)
- [Face X-ray for More General Face Forgery Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.13458/) (2019)
- [Age Progression/Regression by Conditional Adversarial Autoencoder](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.08423/) (2017)
- [MesoNet: a Compact Facial Video Forgery Detection Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.00888/) (2018)
- [Exposing DeepFake Videos By Detecting Face Warping Artifacts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.00656/) (2018)
- [What makes fake images detectable? Understanding properties that generalize](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.10588/) (2020)
- [DeeperForensics-1.0: A Large-Scale Dataset for Real-World Face Forgery Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.03024/) (2020)
- [The Creation and Detection of Deepfakes: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.11138/) (2020)
- [DeepFakes and Beyond: A Survey of Face Manipulation and Fake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.00179/) (2020)
- [Global Texture Enhancement for Fake Face Detection in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.00133/) (2020)
- [Delayed Impact of Fair Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.04383/) (2018)
- [ForensicTransfer: Weakly-supervised Domain Adaptation for Forgery Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.02510/) (2018)
- [Evading Deepfake-Image Detectors with White- and Black-Box Attacks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.00622/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 35)

- [Detecting Deepfakes with Self-Blended Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.08376/) (2022)
- [DF40: Toward Next-Generation Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.13495/) (2024)
- [Transcending Forgery Specificity with Latent Space Augmentation for Generalizable Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.11278/) (2023)
- [Orthogonal Subspace Decomposition for Generalizable AI-Generated Image Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.15633/) (2024)
- [Preserving Fairness Generalization in Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.17229/) (2024)
- [Improving Fairness in Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.16635/) (2023)
- [GBDF: Gender Balanced DeepFake Dataset Towards Fair DeepFake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.10246/) (2022)
- [AI-Face: A Million-Scale Demographically Annotated AI-Generated Face Dataset and Fairness Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.00783/) (2024)
- [Fairness Evaluation in Deepfake Detection Models using Metamorphic Testing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.06825/) (2022)
- [Analyzing Fairness in Deepfake Detection With Massively Annotated Databases](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.05845/) (2022)
- [A Survey of Defenses Against AI-Generated Visual Media: Detection,Disruption, and Authentication](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.10575/) (2024)
- [FairSSD: Understanding Bias in Synthetic Speech Detectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.10989/) (2024)
- [Non-Consensual Synthetic Intimate Imagery: Prevalence, Attitudes, and Knowledge in 10 Countries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.01721/) (2024)
- [Thinking Racial Bias in Fair Forgery Detection: Models, Datasets and Evaluations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.14367/) (2024)
- [Fair Deepfake Detectors Can Generalize](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.02645/) (2025)
- [Social Media Authentication and Combating Deepfakes using Semi-fragile Invisible Image Watermarking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.01906/) (2024)
- [SCDF: A Speaker Characteristics DeepFake Speech Dataset for Bias Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.07944/) (2025)
- [ProtoExplorer: Interpretable Forensic Analysis of Deepfake Videos using Prototype Exploration and Refinement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.11155/) (2023)
- [Data-Driven Fairness Generalization for Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.16428/) (2024)
- [A Quality-Centric Framework for Generic Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.05335/) (2024)
- [Fit for Purpose? Deepfake Detection in the Real World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.16556/) (2025)
- [Gender Fairness in Audio Deepfake Detection: Performance and Disparity Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.09007/) (2026)
- [Metamorphic Testing-based Adversarial Attack to Fool Deepfake Detectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.08612/) (2022)
- [Redundant Semantic Environment Filling via Misleading-Learning for Fair Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.15173/) (2024)
- [Decoupling Bias, Aligning Distributions: Synergistic Fairness Optimization for Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.10150/) (2025)
- [Fair-FLIP: Fair Deepfake Detection with Fairness-Oriented Final Layer Input Prioritising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.08912/) (2025)
- [Fair and Interpretable Deepfake Detection in Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.17264/) (2025)
- [Recent Advancements In The Field Of Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.05563/) (2023)
- [Towards Exploring Fairness in Visual Transformer based Natural and GAN Image Detection Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.12076/) (2023)
- [Bias Analysis for Synthetic Face Detection: A Case Study of the Impact of Facial Attributes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.19705/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recent studies have demonstrated that deep learning models can discriminate based on protected classes like race and gender. In this work, we evaluate bias present in deepfake datasets and detection models across protected subgroups. Using facial datasets balanced by race and gender, we examine three popular deepfake detectors and find large disparities in predictive performances across races, with up to 10.7% difference in error rate between subgroups. A closer look reveals that the widely used FaceForensics++ dataset is overwhelmingly composed of Caucasian subjects, with the majority being female Caucasians. Our investigation of the racial distribution of deepfakes reveals that the methods used to create deepfakes as positive training signals tend to produce "irregular" faces - when a person's face is swapped onto another person of a different race or gender. This causes detectors to learn spurious correlations between the foreground faces and fakeness. Moreover, when detectors are trained with the Blended Image (BI) dataset from Face X-Rays, we find that those detectors develop systematic discrimination towards certain racial subgroups, primarily female Asians.