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Proceedings Paper
Volume: 38 | Article ID: MWSF-311
Image
Face Swap Source Attribution
  DOI :  10.2352/EI.2026.38.4.MWSF-311  Published OnlineMarch 2026
Abstract
Abstract

Face swapping techniques enable the realistic manipulation of facial identities across images, posing significant challenges for digital forensics. While existing research has focused on detecting manipulated media, little attention has been given to identifying the specific source image used in a face swap. In this work, we investigate whether it is possible to reliably trace a manipulated image back to the exact photo that served as the source for the swapped face. We propose a comparison-based method that generates candidate face swaps using known source images and compares them to the target manipulation. Experiments data set demonstrate that our method identifies the correct source image based. We further evaluate robustness against common image distortions, such as JPEG compression and down-scaling, and find that the identification process remains reliable. Our findings highlight the potential of image-level forensic analysis to support source attribution in face-swapped media, with important implications for legal and investigative contexts.

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Martin Steinebach, Julian Götzinger, "Face Swap Source Attributionin Electronic Imaging,  2026,  pp 311-1 - 311-7,  https://doi.org/10.2352/EI.2026.38.4.MWSF-311

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This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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