Forensic Analysis of Manipulated Images and Videos

The transition from Industry 4.0 to Industry 5.0 emphasizes the need for ethical, transparent, and human-centric artificial intelligence systems. In this context, ensuring the authenticity of digital information has become crucial for maintaining societal trust. This study addresses the challenge of detecting manipulated multimedia content, including synthetic images, videos, and audio generated by artificial intelligence, commonly known as Deepfakes. We analyze and compare general-purpose and Deepfake-specific detection methods to assess their effectiveness in real-world scenarios. This work introduces a refined reference model that integrates both application-oriented and methodological criteria, grouping tools into Blind Forensic, Handcrafted Machine Learning, Deep Learning-based methods, and Toolkits. This structured taxonomy provides a clearer comparative framework than existing works, which typically classify detectors using only one of these dimensions. To ensure reproducible evaluation, all experiments were performed using the SAFL dataset, which consolidates real and synthetic multimedia content generated with publicly available tools under a unified protocol. Among the tested tools, Forensically achieved the highest accuracy in image forgery detection 86.9%, while Autopsy reached 69.5% among Deepfake-specific image detectors. In video analysis, Forensically obtained 98.6% accuracy, whereas Deepware Scanner achieved 91.2% as the most effective Deepfake-focused tool. These results highlight that general-purpose methods remain robust for images, while specialized detectors perform competitively in videos. Overall, the proposed model and dataset establish a consistent foundation for advancing hybrid detection strategies aligned with the ethical and transparent AI principles envisioned in Industry 5.0.