By Brújula Digital:

The leaked audio recordings: an analysis of their political effects and the possibilities for verification

Audio number 11 attributed to Cerimedo has just surfaced. While awaiting an investigation by the prosecutor’s office, three specialists reflect on some of the many aspects surrounding this issue.

This Monday, the eleventh audio recording attributed to Fernando Cerimedo, former adviser to President Rodrigo Paz, surfaced. As with one of the first recordings, the conversation was reportedly once again with María Elena Urquidi, President Rodrigo Paz’s wife.

Since August 31, Vice President Edmand Lara has presented seven recordings that he attributed to a secret source. Over the past three weeks, four more have emerged, this time through social media. The person believed to be Cerimedo speaks by telephone with President Paz, Government Minister Marco Antonio Oviedo, Public Works Minister Mauricio Zamora, a police intelligence chief, a congressman, and former prosecutor Roger Mariaca, among others (see details here).

What follows is an analysis of this case from two perspectives: political and technological, always bearing in mind that doubts remain about the authenticity of the material. Journalist and analyst Andrés Gómez offers some interesting insights into the first perspective: what can be gleaned from the overall content of the recordings?

On the other issue, Helga Velasco of Bolivia Verifica and Enid López of Chequea Bolivia share their experience as fact-checkers in dealing with audio recordings, the technological possibilities for assessing their authenticity, and the factors that can be analyzed using various tools available online.

One essential element of the context is that Lara said he had handed all the material he received over to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, but the latter has yet to issue a statement, either under Mariaca’s administration or since his interim successor, José Armando Urioste, took office three weeks ago.

What do the audio recordings reveal?

At a key point in his analysis, Gómez identifies a “fundamental problem” regarding what the leaked recordings—their content and the very fact that these alleged conversations took place—reveal: “the possible gap between the power formally established by the rules and the power exercised in practice. If someone without public office could influence government decisions, it is necessary to know who allowed that person to do so and under what conditions.”

We have organized the rest of Gómez’s analysis into four key points:

• Discourse

“From a discourse analysis perspective, the recordings reveal a central issue: the possible existence of informal power operating close to the government’s innermost circle. Cerimedo was neither a public official nor an authority figure, yet he apparently maintained direct relationships with the president, his wife, ministers, police officers, and even former Attorney General Roger Mariaca.”

• Capacity and power

“The language used, the familiarity between the speakers, and the apparent willingness of some interlocutors to listen to Cerimedo’s proposals suggest that these were not simply social relationships. If the conversations are authentic, Cerimedo would have exercised influence over public decisions. Power does not consist solely of holding office, but also of being able to impose or influence decisions.”

• Political effects

“The recordings have struck at the heart of the credibility of the government and Paz. Part of the population has begun to perceive the president as someone influenced or constrained by Cerimedo, and to associate his wife with an alleged corruption scheme. The damage does not depend exclusively on whether crimes are proven; it also stems from the contradiction between the public image of the authorities and the power apparently reflected in the conversations.”

• Three key factors to consider
  • The personalization of power.
  • The potential existence of informal channels of coordination.
  • Possible intervention in sensitive matters of state.

The technical and technological aspects

Before addressing some basic questions about the possibilities of verifying an audio recording, the interviewees agreed on an important warning: experimenting with available online tools as part of journalistic work is one thing; the forensic examination that the Judicial Branch, and even the police, can and should conduct is quite another.

Velasco, from Bolivia Verifica, maintains that the results of the verifications they conduct “do not, in themselves, have legal validity in court; they do not replace an expert examination and cannot definitively establish whether content has been manipulated.” López, from Chequea Bolivia, takes the same position: “We conduct journalistic verification work. The material we produce does not constitute an expert report that is valid in court.”

One further clarification: this article does not examine or take into account whether either fact-checking organization has investigated any of the recordings attributed to Cerimedo. The aim is different: to gather technical and technological information, along with details about their work.

How feasible is it to verify whether an audio recording is genuine? Is the technology available in our country? What steps or procedures are followed?

Velasco: “Signs of manipulation using artificial intelligence can be detected. Just as there are tools for creating synthetic content, there are also tools for analyzing possible traces of their use. Most online tools offer free versions, although they often limit file duration or the number of analyses. Paid subscriptions vary in price.”

López: “Verifying audio recordings is a very complex process. At Chequea Bolivia, we only begin verifying an audio recording when we are certain that we can classify it as false, true, and so on. We need to gather sufficient elements to assign it a category: evidence and proof that go far beyond simply analyzing it with digital tools, which only provide a probability of artificial intelligence use. That is not enough to determine whether something is true or false. There must be additional elements to examine: whether a cellphone number is available so it can be compared with the number supposedly used to record the audio; whether there are possible distortions in the words; whether the pronunciation of words can be compared. “When we do not have conclusive evidence, we publish articles explaining the entire analysis we have conducted (…). Any user can use online tools to perform the analysis.”

To establish authenticity, what factors and variables can be analyzed apart from whether the recording was created using AI?

Velasco: “The tools provide estimated percentages indicating the probability of manipulation or authenticity. These results must be interpreted with caution: they are not definitive conclusions. In the case of audio recordings, some analyses may identify flat or robotic voices, unnatural expressions, or phrases that seem to have been joined together without the expected conversational flow.”

López: “The most readily available option is to look for possible signs of AI involvement. Determining the origin, for example, is very complex unless there is additional evidence beyond a leaked audio recording (…). Normally, metadata is used to analyze an audio recording, document, or video. However, this is only useful when the document has been sent to you directly. When it has been leaked onto social media and shared across different platforms by different users, all that metadata is automatically erased.

“Other factors can be traced using additional elements, for example, an email address, cellphone number, or social media account belonging to one or more possible individuals involved, which can then be investigated. As for recording phone calls, there are applications that do so automatically, without distinction. This is a decision made by the cellphone user, not an external decision (…). The other possibility would be espionage. It certainly may be possible because advanced technology exists. State intelligence services undoubtedly use such tools, which are not available to ordinary users.”

Regarding technology-based verification, what general or specific legislation exists in the country? Are there precedents or case law?

Velasco: “The rules governing expert evidence depend on the type of proceedings. In criminal matters, they are established by the Code of Criminal Procedure, which sets out how an expert examination is ordered and conducted; in civil matters, they are governed by the Code of Civil Procedure. There is also a public register of experts, interpreters, and translators maintained by the Judicial Branch.”

López: “On one occasion, to clarify a case of disinformation, we were asked to provide a comprehensive report on a verification. In such cases, we explain that all the evidence we have is available on our social media accounts and website, along with the entire procedure we followed.

“There are experts who conduct this type of forensic examination within the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the police. They presumably have access to much more information than we do. For example, they can request court orders to obtain dates, times, and telephone numbers. The authorities investigating these cases have full authority to request reports from the relevant institutions, such as the Telecommunications and Transport Authority (ATT) and telephone companies. They also have mobile devices seized during these investigations that can be subjected to forensic examination.”

BD/MZS