AI impersonation and brand abuse: what identity teams need to change

TL;DR: Always-on social presence has turned public figures into constant impersonation targets, with deepfakes, fake accounts, and social engineering now used against both fans and internal staff, according to Doppel. Old verification habits no longer hold when digital channels can be convincingly spoofed.

Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Doppel: “Athletes as Brands: Securing 24/7 Public Figures in the Social Media Era”.

Key questions

Q: How should organisations verify requests when voice, video, and social accounts can be spoofed?

A: Treat high-risk requests as untrusted until confirmed through a separate channel that the requester did not initiate.

Q: Why do deepfakes create a governance problem for security teams?

A: Deepfakes create a governance problem because they undermine trust in evidence used for decisions, approvals, fraud checks, and incident response.

Q: What are the warning signs that impersonation controls are failing?

A: Look for repeated lookalike accounts, cloned domains, sudden brand misuse, staff receiving urgent requests through informal channels, and identity claims that bypass normal verification.

Practitioner guidance

• Implement out-of-band verification for high-risk requests Require callback, known contact, or face-to-face confirmation before any payment, credential reset, or access grant attributed to a public figure.
• Monitor external impersonation channels continuously Track social platforms, open web domains, app stores, and dark web forums for fake accounts, cloned brands, counterfeit listings, and deepfakes.
• Build a trusted-contact directory for executive and public-figure workflows Maintain pre-approved offline channels and escalation paths so staff can verify identity without relying on the channel used in the request.

Bottom line: AI-generated impersonation has turned public identity into a governance problem that spans fraud, brand protection, and access control.

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