Is it true that there are rubber masks made for human cloning? No, it's not true: Real Face sells rubber masks seen in the video commercially to support facial recognition and research and development.
The claim appeared on TikTok (archived here) on June 3, 2023. In the video, a man can be seen shaping a rubber mask by hand while 3D mapping it on a computer. The caption (translated by the Japanese language by Lead Stories) reads as follows:
The world's darkness: Clone technology. This has existed a long time ago. Are you sure that the person you know is real? Technological advancement is improving. This is not a conspiracy theory.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Jun 13 03:01:21 2023 UTC)
After further investigation, the watermark on the right corner of the video leads to TIME LINE, a crowdfunding service in Japan. While the original video is not on TIME LINE anymore, the product's official site says that the masks developed are used mainly to verify and test research and development in the field of facial recognition. In short, the masks were not created for the purpose of cloning. Rather, the masks are sold commercially and custom-made for various practical purposes, such as supporting facial recognition research.
