INEC blames registration officers for AI-generated photos, irregularities in voter register

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has blamed some of its registration officers for the appearance of suspected artificial intelligence-generated photographs and other irregularities in its preliminary register of voters.

Lawrence Bayode, INEC’s Director of Information and Communication Technology, disclosed this on Friday during an interview on Arise Television, while addressing concerns surrounding the recently unveiled preliminary voter register.

The commission had faced criticism on social media following reports of duplicate entries, suspected AI-generated photographs and names of deceased persons appearing in the register.

Screenshots circulated online showed voter entries from a polling unit in Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo State, with photographs suspected to have been generated using artificial intelligence, raising concerns about the credibility of the data.

However, Bayode attributed the discrepancies to alleged misconduct by some registration officers across the country, who had access to the commission’s registration portal.

He explained that the officers used their login credentials to introduce questionable records into the voter database.

“We have registration officers on the field. And these registration officers, they have login details to log into the system,” he said.

He added that the commission had discovered that some officers across different states were responsible for introducing irregularities into the register.

“Some of these registration officers, not all of them now, some of them across the states nationwide, they’ve done different things to bring these irregularities onto the register.

“Some of these pictures are AI-generated, but very bad registration. And this thing got into the register by the registration officers and because they have access to register people,” Bayode said.

He further disclosed that the commission identified how some of the irregularities were introduced following the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) exercise but could not establish the reasons behind the actions of the officers involved.

“When the ABIS was run on the system, we saw these people. We know what they did. We know how they did it. But honestly, I don’t know why,” he said.

Bayode also noted that INEC had commenced the process of cleaning up the voter register before releasing its preliminary version.

He explained that the commission was working under pressure to complete the exercise within the statutory 90-day period.