Generative AI-driven fraud surges across Africa, reaching crisis levels — Smile ID report

Generative AI was behind more than a third of new biometric fraud cases in Africa last year, according to a new report by Smile ID, the continent’s leading provider of identity verification solutions, warning that the surge in deepfakes threatens the data of millions of consumers whose details are held on insecure systems.
The 2025 Digital Identity Fraud in Africa Report has revealed a dramatic escalation in fraud tactics across the continent, as fraudsters increasingly turn to generative artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced techniques. Digital security in Africa faces a growing challenge amid troubling fraud trends that include the increased use of biometric spoofing, identity farming, and AI-generated forgeries. For example, deepfake videos used to impersonate people increased sevenfold from July to December 2024, according to the report.
Digital banks in East Africa recorded peak fraud attempts at 35% of all biometric and document verifications in 2024, followed by micro-finance at 30%, says the report by the Lagos-based software company. It attributes this worrying trend to the reliance on outdated, inconsistent, and poor-quality identity documents, which hindered the verification processes. Drawing on anonymized data from over 110 million identity verification checks conducted across Central, East, West, and Southern Africa in 2024, the report highlights both challenges and progress in fraud prevention. Despite the adoption of biometric verification over traditional text-based methods that have played a significant role in combating fraud, fraudsters are reported to have adapted quickly, targeting biometric systems with even more sophisticated attacks.