With fake images and videos becoming more convincing everyday (like the Rashmika Mandanna fake video), tech giants have increased their monitoring to combat that menace. But now it is not only the tech giants, but camera manufacturers that are joining this fight by developing technology that will embed digital signatures in their cameras with new technology that can verify the authenticity of photos. Sony, Nikon and Canon are working on embedding digital signatures in their cameras that will act as the proof of origin and the integrity of the images shot by them reports Nikkei Asia.

The digital signatures are believed to contain information such as the date, time, location, and the name of the photographer who has shot the image. The manufacturers believe that this will restrict tampering and help the photographers and viewers to identify the credibility of the work. Nikon is expected to offer this feature in its mirrorless cameras, while Sony and Canon are expected to offer it in their professional line-up as well.

How does it work?

If you are wondering how does this work? Then the three manufacturers have agreed on creating a global standard for digital signatures, which will be made compatible with a web-based tool called Verify. This tool has been launched by an alliance of global news organisations, technology companies, and camera makers, will allow anyone to check the credentials of an image for free. Once the online tool runs through the image, it will display the relevant information if an image has a digital signature. If the image has been altered by AI, then the tool will flag it as having “No Content Credentials”.

Google, Intel doing their bit

Google, the biggest search engine globally is also doing their bit to help this fight. They have released a tool that adds invisible digital watermarks to AI-generated pictures, which can be detected by another tool. Intel has developed technology that can analyse the skin colour changes of subjects in images, which indicate the blood flow under their skin, and use that to determine the image’s authenticity. 

The Challenge?

The biggest challenge though seems to be the user journey where they will have to use these tools to verify the images and authenticity. Whether a user undertakes that journey remains to be seen. But it is clear that a tool/technology like this is much needed at this point with the increase of deep fake images and videos on a rise. 

Sony is expected to release this technology by 2024 as per reports and Canon is expected to make it available later this year. Currently this embedding is expected to be available only for images, but reports suggests that Sony and Canon are considering adding the feature to videos, although under development.