# GIFGuard: Proactive Forensics against Deepfakes in Facial GIFs via Spatiotemporal Watermarking

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.26519 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.26519/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Watermarking generated content and models, one of 12 directions in LLM safety and security.
- Builds on 28 of its 47 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 Apr 2026.

## 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, 28 of 28)

- [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)
- [StarGAN v2: Diverse Image Synthesis for Multiple Domains](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01865/) (2019)
- [Celeb-DF: A Large-scale Challenging Dataset for DeepFake Forensics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.12962/) (2019)
- [HiDDeN: Hiding Data With Deep Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.09937/) (2018)
- [The Stable Signature: Rooting Watermarks in Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.15435/) (2023)
- [SimSwap: An Efficient Framework For High Fidelity Face Swapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.06340/) (2021)
- [Tree-Ring Watermarks: Fingerprints for Diffusion Images that are Invisible and Robust](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.20030/) (2023)
- [GANimation: Anatomically-aware Facial Animation from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.09251/) (2018)
- [Robust Invisible Video Watermarking with Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.01285/) (2019)
- [Gaussian Shading: Provable Performance-Lossless Image Watermarking for Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.04956/) (2024)
- [DFEW: A Large-Scale Database for Recognizing Dynamic Facial Expressions in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.05924/) (2020)
- [EditGuard: Versatile Image Watermarking for Tamper Localization and Copyright Protection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.08883/) (2023)
- [MBRS : Enhancing Robustness of DNN-based Watermarking by Mini-Batch of Real and Simulated JPEG Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.08211/) (2021)
- [Context-Aware Emotion Recognition Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.05913/) (2019)
- [Video Seal: Open and Efficient Video Watermarking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.09492/) (2024)
- [FakeTagger: Robust Safeguards against DeepFake Dissemination via Provenance Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.09869/) (2020)
- [DVMark: A Deep Multiscale Framework for Video Watermarking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.12734/) (2021)
- [SepMark: Deep Separable Watermarking for Unified Source Tracing and Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.06321/) (2023)
- [MobileFaceSwap: A Lightweight Framework for Video Face Swapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.03808/) (2022)
- [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)
- [DiffMark: Diffusion-based Robust Watermark Against Deepfakes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.01428/) (2025)
- [WaveGuard: Robust Deepfake Detection and Source Tracing via Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet and Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.08614/) (2025)
- [Uncovering and Mitigating Destructive Multi-Embedding Attacks in Deepfake Proactive Forensics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.17247/) (2025)
- [Boosting Active Defense Persistence: A Two-Stage Defense Framework Combining Interruption and Poisoning Against Deepfake](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.07795/) (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)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The rapid evolution of deepfake technology poses an unprecedented threat to the authenticity of Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) imagery, which serves as a representative of short-loop temporal media in social networks. However, existing proactive forensics works are designed for static images, which limits their applicability to animated GIFs. To bridge this gap, we propose GIFGuard, the first spatiotemporal watermarking framework tailored for deepfake proactive forensics in GIFs. In the embedding stage, we propose the Spatiotemporal Adaptive Residual Encoder (STARE) to ensure robustness against high-level semantic tampering. It employs a 3D convolutional backbone with adaptive channel recalibration to capture globally coherent temporal dependencies. In the extraction stage, we design the Deep Integrity Restoration Decoder (DIRD). It utilizes a spatiotemporal hourglass architecture equipped with 3D attention to restore latent features, allowing for the accurate extraction of watermark signals even under severe facial manipulation. Furthermore, we construct GIFfaces, the first large-scale benchmark dataset curated for GIF proactive forensics to facilitate research in this domain. Extensive results show that GIFGuard achieves high-fidelity visual quality and remarkable robustness performance against deepfakes. The related code and dataset are available at https://github.com/vpsg-research/GIFGuard.