From Mother’s Day Photoshop faux pas to deep fake scandals involving explicit images of celebrities, the creation and distribution of fake news via falsified images has become a major issue today and one that’s only likely to increase in both prominence and severity.
Digital identity security specialists, ID Crypt Global, is taking the fight to image fakers, using identity to tackle disinformation with the launch of its early access Authentic Media Protection Program (AMP).
It’s not just social media users who are at risk of sharing doctored images, news desks, journalists, PR agencies, sharing platforms and content creators around the world are also in danger of being duped.
While scandals surrounding public figures and celebrities are reason enough to be concerned about the increasing distribution of doctored images, the implications are far graver, with the potential for images from war zones such as Gaza and Ukraine to be tampered with between the point they are sent by those on the ground and the point they reach our inboxes.
With AMP, the creator of an original image is able to link a verifiable digital identity to any file they produce, incorporating branding and website URLs in the process.
In doing so, they protect their file with an invisible cryptographic watermark, which allows the end user to verify that the file has not been modified, altered or tampered with in any way. It also allows the end user to verify who published the file originally and on what date they did so.
The free-to-use web browser extension provides a visual overlay for ease of authentication and can work across any information-sharing platform such as X, Facebook or Instagram.
The use of AMP not only ensures that the original creator can easily ascertain if their image has been tampered with, but it also allows those sharing it to trust that the content they are sharing isn’t fake news.
AMP protects content integrity, avoids reputational damage, promotes content ‘trust’, helps to combat disinformation and protects against copyright infringement and media file leakage.
The cryptographic proof of publication date and watermark also helps improve the speed and efficiency of the DMCA content removal process
CEO and Founder of ID Crypt Global, Lauren Wilson-Smith, commented:
“AMP has the potential to end the war on fake news, at least where the distribution of false imagery is concerned.
“Whether or not a public figure has doctored a Mother’s Day photo isn’t the point, the point is whether or not it was doctored after it was taken and without the original creator’s knowledge.
“As a society, we have a duty to ensure the integrity of the content we share via social media, or any other platform for that matter.
“In the most minor of cases, a Photoshop error can be embarrassing, but unfortunately, it goes far beyond this and the creation of deep fake, explicit images of anyone, celebrity or otherwise, is quite frankly abhorrent.
“The application of AMP can also help ensure that any images reported from the front lines of a conflict zone are verifiable and so the benefits stretch far beyond social media figureheads, providing news outlets with the confidence that what they are reporting is accurate.”
