The amount of content posted online each day can make it hard to understand whether what we’re looking at is quite as it appears. In this article, we explain what Content Credentials are and how they can help.

A Newsworks study in 2022 found that more than half (52%) of those interviewed admitted being deceived by fake news at least once – and one in ten said that they “never check the reliability” of content they come across online.

The rise of misinformation and manipulated content is especially prevalent on social media platforms where anybody can post or repost anything they come across without taking the time to verify the source.

This has led to the development of Content Credentials, which are now starting to appear in online images.

What are Content Credentials?

Content Credentials are designed to help people better understand a piece of online content through the addition of tamper-evident metadata.

This metadata details more information including where a piece of content originated, whether it has been subject to any editing, and, in the case of composite images, the original images used.

Who created Content Credentials?

Content Credentials were established by the Adobe-led Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI).

They conform to the standard developed by the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), a non-profit joint development foundation project founded in February 2021 by Adobe and Microsoft. The Content Credentials icon, which was introduced earlier this year, is now part of this standard.

The C2PA brings together the efforts of the CAI with those of Project Origin. Its main objective is to establish clear standards for verifying the provenance of digital content. Other members of the C2PA include Arm, the BBC, Intel, and Truepic.

Why do Content Credentials exist?

According to Andy Parsons, Senior Director of the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), Content Credentials were created to become “a universal standard and expectation across culture online.“

The explosion of AI-generated images, synthetic content, and deep fakes has meant that the world is constantly being faced with new challenges in verifying every piece of content posted online.

Content Credentials enable the creator of a piece of content to attach their identity and other information to the image. This helps improve overall transparency once it appears online.

This, in turn, means that online users are better equipped to decide whether what they are looking at is what they believe it to be.

A further benefit is that content creators are properly credited for their work, in the way they have specified, regardless of where this content is viewed online.

What do Content Credentials show?

Content Credentials can provide a range of information on a piece of content including:

• details on the creator or publisher
• the place in which an image was taken
• any tools used in the creative process
• edits made to the original content
• if generative AI has been used.

Content creators can also use these to attach social media handles and web3 details.

You can see this for yourself in the image above. Simply hover over it and click on the Content Credentials pin, which reveals some of the information outlined above.

In addition to the photographer and editing history, these details also show that this is an official piece of content from the New Zealand Rugby Official Photography Library.

Why are Content Credentials important?

Content Credentials add a layer of verification to make the digital world more trustworthy and reliable for creators, users, and journalists alike.

They act as a point of provenance to help people spot and avoid misinformation across the many forms of online content.

One recent event in particular made the importance of this clear.

In May 2023, news of an explosion at the Pentagon went viral. According to the AP, this “sent a brief shiver through the stock market” and was reported by official news outlets abroad before US officials confirmed it was an image generated by artificial intelligence.

🚨 BREAKING:🚨An AI image of an explosion at the US Pentagon just caused a $500 billion market cap swing.

It was set off by a fake Bloomberg Twitter account with a Verified checkmark.

The struggle to identify the truth is getting dangerous…

(h/t @KobeissiLetter) pic.twitter.com/zrh4K2Nj2L

— Lorenzo Green 〰️ (@mrgreen) May 23, 2023

Given the growth in the usage of AI tools and the corresponding fragmented nature of regulating any rapidly evolving technology, debates around how it’s fairly regulated continue around the world.

Proactive efforts, such as Content Credentials, allow users to identify content that may have been tampered with, or that is completely false to begin with. This is thanks to the principle of cryptographic signing, which is used to append this metadata to images.

Consider for a moment any image posted online needing to go through some form of verification, one that is easily accessible and that clearly shows its history and any editing.

This system would empower journalists to easily confirm the image source, resulting in more accurate and reliable reporting.

Furthermore, ensuring that images and other digital content are authenticated by their creator and include an editing history may help to provide evidence in the case of copyright disputes.

How do I use Content Credentials?

If a piece of content has associated Content Credentials, you can access these by clicking on the “CR” pin in the corner of the image. Alternatively, there may be a specific Content Credentials link to indicate that this information is available.

In either case, a panel on the side of the image with further details will appear. Clicking on a button at the bottom of this panel will direct the user to the contentcredentials.org page, where additional details may be seen.

Can I use Content Credentials with SmartFrame images?

We are a proud member of the CAI and committed to helping the mission to create a safer and more transparent online environment. For this reason, all SmartFrame images are capable of supporting Content Credentials.

This means that, regardless of where these images are shared or viewed online, we actively help content owners maintain transparency over their images.

Furthermore, SmartFrame’s multi-layered theft protection will help keep them safe from theft and unauthorized use.

How do Content Credentials help photographers and photojournalists?

By attaching Content Credentials to their images from the moment they are captured – or at least as soon as possible – photojournalists and photographers can ensure that anyone who comes across their work has access to a transparent record of the image’s history.

While photographers may use this to attach an appropriate credit and to show a creative process, this level of transparency is particularly important for photojournalists because it allows them to establish and maintain credibility and trust with their audience.

This may also be helpful when submitting images for competitions.

There have been multiple stories in recent years concerning images that have been entered into competitions that were later discovered to be either composites or to have been at least partly created using AI tools (or in some other way to have broken the conditions of entry).

Making the creative process clear from the start would allow the eligibility of such images to be assessed upon submission.

Do Content Credentials show the same type of information in all images?

As the process by which one image comes into existence may differ from another, we should expect any appended information to vary too.

For example, an image that has not been edited in any way will not have any editing history to show. Likewise, a composite image may show all the images that have been used in its composition, whereas a conventional image will not.

Another reason that two images may show different information is that a content creator or publisher decides which categories of information to attach. Additionally, Adobe has made it clear that some Photoshop actions are not yet supported by Content Credentials.

Do Content Credentials support AI images?

Despite the many controversies around IP and other ethical concerns, Content Credentials can be applied to AI-generated images.

As with images captured conventionally, Content Credentials can be used to determine the origin of an AI-generated image and record its editing history.

Furthermore, Content Credentials can be used to identify AI images by embedding a flag or marker in the credential itself that indicates that the image was generated by an AI tool.

Are Content Credentials in Photoshop?

Yes, Content Credentials (Beta) are available to Photoshop users. As the video below shows, these can be exported with images once any edits have been made.

Are Content Credentials in Lightroom?

Yes. Adobe Lightroom users can quickly enable Content Credentials (Beta) to appear as an option when exporting images. You can learn how to do this by reading Adobe’s explainer.

Are Content Credentials in Adobe Firefly?

Content Credentials are also a part of Adobe Firefly. When you use specific features like Text to Image, Text Effects, or Generative Fill, the system automatically attaches Content Credentials to the image(s) created.

Users can also include additional Content Credentials if they wish to share extra information about the creative process and what tools were used.

Which cameras support Content Credentials?

At the time of writing, only a couple of cameras have Content Credentials built in as standard.

These are the Leica M11-P – the world’s first camera with Content Credentials – and the soon-to-be-released Sony A9 III.

Sony has, however, announced that some of its older Sony A1 and A7S III cameras will support Content Credentials via a firmware update.

Nikon also demonstrated a sample of its Z9 camera with Content Credentials built into it at this year’s Adobe MAX event, although the feature is not currently integrated into retail samples.

What’s next for Content Credentials?

Content Credentials will undoubtedly become more prominent as the CAI welcomes new members, and as a broader range of platforms and hardware support the standard.

Welcome to the newest CAI members! Today, we’re celebrating over 2,000 members, a global community committed to building and fostering a more trustworthy and transparent digital ecosystem.

🟡Learn more about the #C2PA standard or Content Credentials for certifying the source and… pic.twitter.com/NThNVgbQAf

— Content Authenticity Initiative (@ContentAuth) November 14, 2023

The CAI has also stated that Content Credentials are applicable to audio and video, which echoed similar statements in its original white paper about presenting “a set of standards that can be used to create and reveal attribution and history for images, documents, time-based media (video, audio) and streaming content”.

At the time of writing, there doesn’t appear to be much information on quite how this will apply to formats other than images.

However, Adobe has said that the icon and transparency features will soon be coming to further apps, so further details will no doubt be made available as this happens.