Slow down before you download any deepfake scanner app. The stores are full of scanners that scan nothing. Here is the pre-download checklist I actually use.
Check one: the developer. Is there a real company behind this, with a website and a privacy policy? A scanner from an anonymous account with three other flashlight apps is not a detection tool. It is a data collection tool wearing a costume. A real deepfake detector app comes from a company with a reputation to lose.
Check two: data retention. Your uploads are the product being analyzed, and the policy says whether they are kept, shared, or fed into training. You want short retention and no third-party sharing. Vague language is a no. Full stop.
Check three: modality honesty. Does the listing say exactly what it analyzes, images, video, audio, and what it does not? Apps claiming to detect everything usually detect nothing well. Specificity is a good sign.
Check four: the reviews, sorted by critical. Five-star reviews can be bought. Detailed one-star reviews describing false positives and crashes are usually real. Read ten before you tap install. It takes four minutes.
Check five: permissions. A deepfake scanner app for iOS or Android needs media access. It does not need your contacts, your location, or your microphone. Excess permissions reveal what the app is really for, and it is not detection.
Check six: the business model. Free with ads, freemium, paid upfront, all fine when stated plainly. A free app with no visible revenue model is not fine. Then you are the revenue model.
Check seven: expectation setting. Does the listing admit limits? Any scanner promising to catch every deepfake is lying. I trust the app that says sometimes I am unsure far more than the one screaming perfect accuracy. Honesty in the listing predicts honesty in the verdicts.
Most app-store options eliminate themselves against this list. An AI generated image checker app free tier can be fine for curiosity, and a mobile app to detect deepfake video is decent triage, but triage is the ceiling until a reviewed tool confirms it. For the detection technology underneath, compared properly across vendors, the database at deepfakedetect.fyi is worth a look before you commit to anything on your phone.