Italian Central Bank Issues Warning on Potential Deepfakes of Governor Fabio Panetta: Guardrails for AI and Harm Prevention

February 26, 2026

The Bank of Italy has issued a warning regarding the circulation of allegedly fake content, using Governor Fabio Panetta's name and likeness. These materials, potentially created with deepfake techniques, are reportedly used to promote questionable investment opportunities likely aimed at defrauding the public. The bank filed a complaint with judicial authorities, highlighting the importance of responsible AI use in such sensitive areas. This incident underscores the need for trustworthy AI governance and safe and secure AI practices to prevent harm. Contribute to the HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM through JOIN US to learn more about AI incident management.

Alleged deployer

unknown-scammers-impersonating-fabio-panetta, unknown-scammers

Alleged developer

unknown-voice-cloning-technology-developers, unknown-image-generator-developers, unknown-generative-ai-developers, unknown-deepfake-technology-developers

Alleged harmed parties

general-public-of-italy, general-public, fabio-panetta, epistemic-integrity, bank-of-italy, banca-d'italia

AI governance case studies

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Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.