During the darkest early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Bonnie Henry became a household name across Canada, a calm and reassuring presence who appeared at daily briefings with public health guidance that millions of Canadians trusted. Her face and voice were symbols of stability in an uncertain time. That familiarity, however, became a weapon. Not long after the height of the pandemic, Henry realized that her likeness was being stolen and manipulated in AI-generated videos circulating on social media, with fake versions of her promoting supposed health products, including a prostate treatment. The experience, she said, “really scared me initially, because it was so easy for people to make it look like I was saying things that were just not true.” It was a profound violation, not just of her image but of the trust she had spent years building with the public. She described the phenomenon as “disturbing,” because people were “taking things that are real and distorting them.” Her reaction speaks to a deeper, human unease: the sense that our own identity can be hijacked, our voice severed from our intentions, and our reputation used to deceive others. And Henry is far from alone. Across Canada, prominent physicians are discovering the same unsettling reality, and many have found that there are very few places to turn for help. The deepfake videos are not merely harmless internet pranks; they are often highly sophisticated scams targeting vulnerable people, offering questionable pills and remedies, and using respected doctors to lend credibility to medical misinformation that can put lives at risk.
One such physician is Dr. François Marquis, chief of intensive care at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital in Montreal. He has become an unwilling recurring character in a series of AI-generated advertisements on Facebook, each featuring his face and voice selling a different product. “This time I’m selling something that is supposed to fix your joints,” he said in a recent interview, describing the latest fake ad. “What is getting bolder is, now I’m offering $1 million if you’re not a satisfied customer.” The convenience of a million-dollar guarantee, of course, is a classic scam tactic, but it is made far more sinister when it is placed in the mouth of a real physician whom patients may recognize from the hospital. Marquis has heard from multiple patients and colleagues who have spotted these videos, and he has had to confront the damage they are causing. In one especially heartbreaking case, a victim of the deepfake scam actually came looking for him in the intensive care unit, hoping to get a refund for pills that were never delivered. “It was very sad, because that person invested hundreds of dollars in those pills and never received anything,” Marquis recalled. The financial loss was bad enough, but the emotional betrayal was just as painful: someone had believed a fake version of a trusted doctor and been swindled. Marquis worries even more, though, about the potential health consequences, including patients who might purchase and consume counterfeit drugs or, worse, stop taking their prescribed medications after following fraudulent advice. Despite repeatedly flagging the videos to social media platforms, Quebec’s medical college, and the police, he has seen little meaningful action. “Basically I was told that there’s nothing they can really do,” he said. His frustration echoes that of many other physicians who are caught in a loop of reporting fakes, only to watch new ones appear as quickly as the old ones are taken down.
The term “deepfake” refers to a digital likeness of a real person, created by artificial intelligence, that mimics facial movements and voice with unsettling accuracy. In recent years, these videos have exploded across the internet, and their quality has improved dramatically, making it increasingly difficult for ordinary people to distinguish what is real from what is manufactured. One study, already three years old, found that up to 50 percent of people could not tell the difference between deepfakes and authentic videos about scientific subjects. That number is surely worse today, as technology has advanced and the tools to create deepfakes have become cheaper and more widely available. Timothy Caulfield, a professor and researcher in health law and science policy at the University of Alberta, put it bluntly: “It’s only going to get more sophisticated. These kinds of scams — and that’s really what they are — are only going to get more convincing.” The rise of doctor-targeting deepfakes is not unique to Canada. A 2024 report in the British Medical Journal noted that such videos are increasingly common in the United Kingdom, while American policymakers have been considering a bill known as the “NO FAKES Act” aimed at curbing the broader trend of AI-generated impersonation. Canadian physicians say the same kind of attention is needed in this country, not just in the form of legislation, but also in public education and practical support. The worry is not only that people will lose money, although that is certainly happening; it is that the erosion of trust will extend to real doctors and public health institutions. When a fake doctor lies, it undermines the credibility of every real doctor. It sows confusion in a way that has real public health consequences, especially during times when reliable medical information is crucial. The deepfake phenomenon is not just a technology issue or a legal issue; it is a deeply human issue that touches on identity, trust, and safety.
In response to growing concerns, the Canadian federal government has taken some initial steps to address AI-related harms. It has expanded the Canadian AI Safety Institute and introduced legislation targeting non-consensual sexualized deepfakes, known as the Protecting Victims Act, as well as measures to combat AI-generated electoral misinformation. In a statement to CBC News, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada emphasized that safety is a priorityaine and pointed to proposed legislative plans, including Bill C-36, the Protecting Privacy and Consumer Data Act. If passed, that bill would give individuals the right to request that an organization dispose of their personal information, including the ability to ask for a deepfake of themselves to be taken down from a commercial platform. The government also noted that the new Digital Safety and Data Protection Commission of Canada would work to address deepfakes and age assurance. But these measures, while a step in the right direction, have not yet created a clear, practical pathway for physicians and other victims to reclaim their digital identities. Dr. Fahad Razak, an internist at St. Michael’s Hospital and a Canada Research Chair in Healthcare Data and Analytics at the University of Toronto, argued that Canada still lacks a “co-ordinated” response to the problem. He also pointed to a crucial complication: “a lot of the media we consume in Canada is not generated in Canada. We don’t have enforcement mechanisms and the ability to save and filter out content from certain parts of the world.” This global aspect means that a deepfake created in one country can spread to millions of Canadian screens with almost no ability for Canadian officials to intervene. The internet does not respect borders, and neither do the criminal networks that fuel these scams. For doctors like Henry who have tried to take legal action, the results have been frustrating and slow. Henry eventually filed cease-and-desist letters to multiple parties, but her complaints still hit roadblocks. “I think our organizations — whether it’s police services, whether it’s universities, whether it’s employment organizations — they’re not really prepared yet to support people who are going through this,” she said.
With enforcement lagging behind, much of the burden currently falls on the public to spot and avoid deepfake scams. Caulfield advises that any time content is being pushed at you and the goal is to sell a product, that alone should be a major red flag. This is especially true when the product is being sold by a supposed Canadian doctor, since provincial and territorial medical colleges enforce strict ethical standards that generally prohibit physicians from publicly endorsing health products in advertisements, on social media, or in interviews. The Canadian Medical Association has made this clear: doctors cannot use their professional credibility to market regulated drugs, biologics, medical devices, or natural health products. In other words, a genuine Canadian physician would never appear in a Facebook ad saying “buy this pill” or “try this treatment,” because doing so would violate professional rules and endanger patient trust. Razak encourages people to be deeply skeptical of any video featuring a doctor selling medical goods臸 and he offers a simple, humanizing reminder: “If you think about your own physician experience, how often is a physician pulling out a drawer of material and trying to sell you something? That’s not how our health-care system works.” That ordinary observation cuts to the heart of the problem. Doctors are trained to heal, not to sell. Their work is based on evidence, not marketing. The images of clean, white-coated physicians in these fake advertisements are designed to exploit our instincts, our hopes, and our vulnerability. We want to believe that someone with authority has found an easy solution to our pain or illness, and the scammers who create deepfakes know exactly how to manipulate that desire. The public must therefore approach social media health advertisements with a healthy sense of suspicion, ask critical questions, and verify information through trustworthy sources such as provincial health authorities or the physician’s actual office.
Ultimately, the rise of doctor deepfakes is a warning about the broader consequences of AI-driven manipulation, and it demands a more compassionate, comprehensive response. For the physicians who have been targeted, the experience is not just an inconvenience; it is a deeply personal assault. Their faces have been stolen, their voices twisted, their professional reputations deployed to deceive the people they have dedicated their lives to helping. Henry’s initial fear speaks to a natural and very human reaction to seeing yourself used to tell lies. Marquis’s story of the victim who came to the ICU, desperate and cheated, illustrates the real-world harm that can follow from these high-tech scams. These doctors are not asking for special treatment; they are asking for the same basic protections afforded to anyone whose identity is used without consent. But right now, the systems in place are simply not equipped to handle the scale or sophistication of the problem. Social media companies have been slow to act, some removing content only after public pressure. Law enforcement and medical colleges often lack the expertise or jurisdiction to pursue cases effectively. And legislation, while emerging, remains too piecemeal to offer a clear answer. What is needed is a more coordinated approach that involves technology companies, governments, medical regulators, and educational institutions working together, not just to take down fake videos, but to prevent them from being created and spread in the first place. Equally important is the need for education, so that Canadians can recognize deepfakes and protect themselves from financial and health-related scams. There is also a human need for support: victims of deepfake impersonation need to feel that they are not alone, that their distress is taken seriously, and that there are meaningful paths to justice. Until that happens, doctors like Henry and Marquis will continue to watch themselves say things they never said, sell things they have never sold, and be forced to defend their own identities to strangers, patients, and even friends. The technology will no doubt keep improving, making the fakes even harder to spot. But the emotional stakes are already clear. Behind every deepfake is a real person, and behind every scam is a potential victim. The fight against AI deception is not just about algorithms and regulations; it is about protecting human trust, human dignity, and the simple, irreplaceable relationship between a doctor and a patient.