Click App Promises to Banish Fake News by Authenticating Photos
A new app called Click will verify photos, adding provenance by harnessing the Content Authenticity Initiative.
Users can stamp their photos using ConetentSign which is Click’s proprietary data management system that supports C2PA, the Content Authenticity Initiative’s (CAI) protocol.
It records “extensive metadata, including location, resolution, and proof of authenticity, all with a single finger swipe.” Click says that will mean users are assured that “every photo taken with Click was not altered or AI-generated, providing greater transparency and credibility to audiences.”
The app is primarily aimed at photographers, journalists, law enforcement, sports fans, paparazzi, and content creators. Click is a subsidiary of Nodle, which uses smartphones as nodes to create a digital trust network for things like locating assets or content authenticity.
The app can be downloaded now on iOS but there is currently a waitlist. An Android version is currently being made.
Ready to make fake news a thing of the past? The truth starts here. #clickyourtruth pic.twitter.com/T4lLrZgbJr
— Click Camera (@clickyourtruth) December 13, 2023
What is the Content Authenticity Initiative?
Content Credentials, developed by the CAI, are essentially a “nutrition label” for digital content — showing when a piece of content is created and modified.
Content Credentials are a free, open-source technology that anyone can incorporate into their own products and platforms.
Content Credentials include “ingredients” or important information such as the creator’s name, the date an image was created, what tools were used to create an image, and any edits that were made along the way. This empowers users to create a digital chain of trust and authenticity.
While the concept of the CAI predates the proliferation of generative AI, trusting an image as real is becoming more important now that it is much easier to make images that look like photos in a matter of seconds.
The Leica M11-P was recently launched with the technology in-camera.
“One use of this technology is to protect the original creator’s copyright and ownership rights by making the origin of the files unmodifiable without tripping the alarms,” writes PetaPixel’s Chris Nicholls.
“Another critical use case will be to show any steps along the editing process that have been carried out. An image can be certified for journalistic purposes to be unedited, or to show any steps that have been carried out to exposure or cropping. Furthermore, any steps to merge the image with another or to replace faces and backgrounds would similarly be recorded.”
A number of companies have signed up the CAI including Adobe, Getty, Nikon, Reuters, and many more.
