# Robust Identity Perceptual Watermark Against Deepfake Face Swapping

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.01357 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.01357/

## Key facts

- Cited by 17 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Watermarking generated content and models, one of 12 directions in LLM safety and security.
- Builds on 40 of its 78 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Nov 2023.

## Placed in

- LLM safety and security / [Watermarking generated content and models](https://mlsanity.com/safety/watermarking-generated-content-and-models/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 40)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [Squeeze-and-Excitation Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.01507/) (2017)
- [Deep Learning Face Attributes in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1411.7766/) (2014)
- [Progressive Growing of GANs for Improved Quality, Stability, and Variation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.10196/) (2017)
- [FaceForensics++: Learning to Detect Manipulated Facial Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.08971/) (2019)
- [CNN-generated images are surprisingly easy to spot... for now](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.11035/) (2019)
- [Towards Universal Fake Image Detectors that Generalize Across Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.10174/) (2023)
- [Face X-ray for More General Face Forgery Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.13458/) (2019)
- [HiDDeN: Hiding Data With Deep Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.09937/) (2018)
- [Multi-attentional Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.02406/) (2021)
- [Detecting Deepfakes with Self-Blended Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.08376/) (2022)
- [StegaStamp: Invisible Hyperlinks in Physical Photographs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.05343/) (2019)
- [SimSwap: An Efficient Framework For High Fidelity Face Swapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.06340/) (2021)
- [Artificial Fingerprinting for Generative Models: Rooting Deepfake Attribution in Training Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.08457/) (2020)
- [DeepfakeBench: A Comprehensive Benchmark of Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.01426/) (2023)
- [Implicit Identity Leakage: The Stumbling Block to Improving Deepfake Detection Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.14457/) (2022)
- [MBRS : Enhancing Robustness of DNN-based Watermarking by Mini-Batch of Real and Simulated JPEG Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.08211/) (2021)
- [Responsible Disclosure of Generative Models Using Scalable Fingerprinting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.08726/) (2020)
- [Evading Watermark based Detection of AI-Generated Content](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.03807/) (2023)
- [AltFreezing for More General Video Face Forgery Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.08317/) (2023)
- [Fine-Grained Face Swapping via Regional GAN Inversion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.14068/) (2022)
- [Disrupting Deepfakes: Adversarial Attacks Against Conditional Image Translation Networks and Facial Manipulation Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.01279/) (2020)
- [Towards Blind Watermarking: Combining Invertible and Non-invertible Mechanisms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.12678/) (2022)
- [DeepFake Detection Based on the Discrepancy Between the Face and its Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.12262/) (2020)
- [CMUA-Watermark: A Cross-Model Universal Adversarial Watermark for Combating Deepfakes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.10872/) (2021)
- [Deepfake Detection: A Comprehensive Survey from the Reliability Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.10881/) (2022)
- [FakeTagger: Robust Safeguards against DeepFake Dissemination via Provenance Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.09869/) (2020)
- [SepMark: Deep Separable Watermarking for Unified Source Tracing and Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.06321/) (2023)
- [Anti-Forgery: Towards a Stealthy and Robust DeepFake Disruption Attack via Adversarial Perceptual-aware Perturbations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00477/) (2022)
- [Initiative Defense against Facial Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10098/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 17 of 17)

- [LampMark: Proactive Deepfake Detection via Training-Free Landmark Perceptual Watermarks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.17209/) (2024)
- [Are Watermarks Bugs for Deepfake Detectors? Rethinking Proactive Forensics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.17867/) (2024)
- [NullSwap: Proactive Identity Cloaking Against Deepfake Face Swapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.18678/) (2025)
- [DiffMark: Diffusion-based Robust Watermark Against Deepfakes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.01428/) (2025)
- [DeContext as Defense: Safe Image Editing in Diffusion Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.16625/) (2025)
- [Evolving from Single-modal to Multi-modal Facial Deepfake Detection: Progress and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.06965/) (2024)
- [WaveGuard: Robust Deepfake Detection and Source Tracing via Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet and Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.08614/) (2025)
- [FractalForensics: Proactive Deepfake Detection and Localization via Fractal Watermarks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.09451/) (2025)
- [Uncovering and Mitigating Destructive Multi-Embedding Attacks in Deepfake Proactive Forensics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.17247/) (2025)
- [All in One: Unifying Deepfake Detection, Tampering Localization, and Source Tracing with a Robust Landmark-Identity Watermark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.23523/) (2026)
- [Through the Lens: Benchmarking Deepfake Detectors Against Moir'e-Induced Distortions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.23225/) (2025)
- [IDRetracor: Towards Visual Forensics Against Malicious Face Swapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06635/) (2024)
- [Defending Deepfake via Texture Feature Perturbation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.17315/) (2025)
- [Disruptive Attacks on Face Swapping via Low-Frequency Perceptual Perturbations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.20595/) (2025)
- [DeepForgeSeal: Latent Space-Driven Semi-Fragile Watermarking for Deepfake Detection Using Adversarial Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.04949/) (2025)
- [Word-Anchored Temporal Forgery Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.06220/) (2026)
- [SAiW: Source-Attributable Invisible Watermarking for Proactive Deepfake Defense](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.23178/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Notwithstanding offering convenience and entertainment to society, Deepfake face swapping has caused critical privacy issues with the rapid development of deep generative models. Due to imperceptible artifacts in high-quality synthetic images, passive detection models against face swapping in recent years usually suffer performance damping regarding the generalizability issue in cross-domain scenarios. Therefore, several studies have been attempted to proactively protect the original images against malicious manipulations by inserting invisible signals in advance. However, existing proactive defense approaches demonstrate unsatisfactory results with respect to visual quality, detection accuracy, and source tracing ability. In this study, to fulfill the research gap, we propose a robust identity perceptual watermarking framework that concurrently performs detection and source tracing against Deepfake face swapping proactively. We innovatively assign identity semantics regarding the image contents to the watermarks and devise an unpredictable and nonreversible chaotic encryption system to ensure watermark confidentiality. The watermarks are robustly encoded and recovered by jointly training an encoder-decoder framework along with adversarial image manipulations. For a suspect image, falsification is accomplished by justifying the consistency between the content-matched identity perceptual watermark and the recovered robust watermark, without requiring the ground-truth. Moreover, source tracing can be accomplished based on the identity semantics that the recovered watermark carries. Extensive experiments demonstrate state-of-the-art detection and source tracing performance against Deepfake face swapping with promising watermark robustness for both cross-dataset and cross-manipulation settings.
