Research shows combining manifests, watermarks and fingerprinting can give publishers, governments and businesses greater confidence in the authenticity of images, video and audio shared online
By Alice Chambers |
A new Microsoft study, Media Integrity and Authentication: Status, Directions, and Futures, finds that content provenance can help people, organisations and governments navigate a rapidly evolving online environment shaped by AI-generated media proliferation.
The study found that no single method can prevent digital deception alone. Instead, combining approaches like provenance manifests, imperceptible watermarks and digital fingerprinting provides crucial context about who created content, what tools were used, and whether it’s been altered.
“Helping people recognise higher-quality content indicators is increasingly important as deepfakes become more disruptive and provenance legislation comes into effect later this year,” writes Samantha Ubota, news reporter for Microsoft, in a blog post titled ‘A new study explores how AI shapes what you can trust online’.
Microsoft recommends that publishers and businesses looking to verify the reliability of their online content combine secure provenance with watermarking. It also suggests investing in user experience tools that let audiences explore content credentials, and integrating secure enclaves into offline devices to strengthen edge validation. While fingerprinting can support manual forensics, it remains expensive at scale.
Read more: Microsoft’s Andrew Jenks on how organisations can ensure the authenticity of their content