Deepfake Awareness: The Front Line for Good AI Governance in Education

Author: Dr. Janine Arantes, Victoria University

When I first began exploring the impact of artificial intelligence on education, the conversation was largely optimistic. AI was framed as a tool for efficiency and personalisation, with little discussion of the risks. But over the past several years, as my research and professional collaborations deepened, it became clear that the shadows cast by AI, demand far more attention than they currently receive and a shift towards AI for education. And it’s through grappling with deepfake awareness that this blog, aims to help us to understand what genuine good governance of AI in education really requires.

Why Good Governance of AI is urgently needed: Deepfake Awareness

Deepfakes, AI-generated, hyper-realistic audio, video, or images, have moved from fringe curiosity to mainstream threat. In education, a convincing deepfake can undermine trust in a teacher, manipulate evidence in an academic integrity case and forge fake resumes, or inflict lasting harm on students’ or staff reputations. I’ve seen the anxiety this produces: colleagues suddenly questioning whether they could become the next target, or whether their institutions would know how to respond if they were.

This anxiety is not misplaced. The reality is that, for most educational organisations, there is no tested protocol, no clear governance pathway, and often very little shared awareness about what to do when a deepfake surfaces. This is compounded by the rise of smart glasses. Acknowledging the amazing work that is emerging, we need to shift our steering committees towards understanding that the risk isn’t just technical; it is legal, ethical, psychosocial, and reputational. Let's use deepfakes to explain. Deepfakes expose the broader governance gaps that exist wherever technology is allowed to outpace institutional learning.

From Awareness to Governance

Raising awareness about deepfakes is not simply a matter of sending out a warning or hosting a one-off workshop. Awareness, if it is to be meaningful, must be embedded in a culture of preparedness, one where staff, students, and leaders understand the risks, know how to identify incidents, and feel empowered to respond.

But awareness alone is never enough. Good governance means building the frameworks, policies, and practices that translate awareness into action. It means having clear reporting mechanisms, robust response protocols, and ongoing professional development that keeps pace with the rapid evolution of AI threats - by ethicists, critical edtech scholars and sociologist. Watch out for ethics washing or 'ethics experts' who have not published in that space.

The accelerating development and accessibility of new devices, such as smart glasses, makes these challenges obvious in our classrooms. With the increasing ease and affordability of smart glasses, now capable of recording, transmitting, and even generating content in real-time, the potential for deepfakes and surveillance in educational settings is expanding rapidly. This flags the urgent need for critical EdTech research to be at the centre of informing both policy and everyday practice, ensuring that technological adoption does not outpace the ethical, legal, and social frameworks required to safeguard our communities.

This is why I created ai4education.org: to provide a central, evolving space for educators, researchers, and policymakers to access not only practical activities to start the discussion, open research and bring out from the shadows the need to highlight, the emerging risks associated with AI - such as deepfakes. It provides the practical tools to be able to bring awareness into practice and strengthen good governance across the sector. The site offers curated resources, up-to-date case studies, and scenario-based learning activities for research that move beyond abstract warnings, grounding them in the realities educators face every day.

The Power of Scenario-Based Learning and Research Collaboration

Learning from scenarios and case studies is one of the most effective ways to build both awareness and governance capacity. Walking through a realistic deepfake scenario forces teams to confront their vulnerabilities - who would be responsible, how would communication be managed, and what support would be available for those affected? These scenarios make the abstract concrete and help surface the latent risks in current practice.

Join the Global Conversation

The challenge of deepfakes is not going away. The need for good governance is booming. In fact, it is only the first wave of complex risks emerging from the proliferation of AI in education; and the door opening for critical edtech to inform, lead and support good governance in education. By starting with deepfake awareness, I hope this blog can help to lay the groundwork for the broader project of building robust, ethical, and adaptive governance structures that can respond to whatever the future brings.