AI scams appearing genuine, security expert warns

Matt Palmer said people should always report if they had been scammed

Scammers are using artificial intelligence (AI) to appear more genuine, an online security expert has said.

The Jersey Cyber Security Centre has warned people about a scam that has used AI to generate images of the chief minister and the Jersey Evening Post (JEP) to promote a fraudulent investment programme.

The police estimated islanders lost a record £5m to scams in 2025 and warned investment fraud was on the rise.

Security Centre director Matt Palmer said AI scams presented certain challenges and that he was "really worried" by increases in them.

He said people should "look for plausibility".

"You look for: 'Is this something that's reasonable? Would the chief minister really be offering me a return on investment? Is my family member actually stuck in some foreign country, or can I pick up the phone and talk to them?

"If we exercise that degree of caution, then very often we can spot some of these. [But] It's going to only become harder, unfortunately."

Palmer said he believed the number of people who did not report scams were far higher than those who did.

He said people should report incidents as it would help his team's work - even if money was not retrieved.

He said: "The numbers that are reported at the fraud forum through the police, we were talking about £5m or so of costs a year that people are incurring.

"We need to understand that those are almost certainly underestimates because a lot of this information is not reported."

Follow BBC Jersey on X and Facebook. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk.