Nikon, Sony and Canon to fight deepfakes with latest camera technology

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THREE leading camera companies including Sony, Nikon, and Canon are collaborating to combat deepfakes by adding digital signatures to images captured with their equipment.

Nikkei Asia reports that these signatures will include information like the date, time, place, and photographer and that they are resistant to alteration.

A worldwide standard for these signatures has been agreed upon by the three companies. They will offer mirror-less cameras with authentication technology for photojournalists and other professionals.

The report noted that the technology development was necessary due to the increasing prevalence of deepfakes.

“Such efforts come as ever-more-realistic fakes appear, testing the judgement of content producers and users alike. Deepfakes of former U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida went viral this year,” part of the report read.

The report added that a free online tool called Verify has been made available for picture verification by a coalition of major news outlets, tech firms, and camera manufacturers. The website shows the date, location, and other credentials if an image has a digital signature.

In addition, Sony will release in the spring of 2024 technology to incorporate digital signatures into three professional-grade mirror-less SLR cameras via a firmware update. The company is considering making the technology compatible with videos as well.
The report further stated that when a photographer sends images to a news organization, Sony’s authentication servers would detect the digital signatures and determine whether they are AI-generated.
Sony and Associated Press field-tested the tool in October. Sony will expand its lineup of compatible camera models and lobby other media outlets to adopt the technology.
A camera with similar features is scheduled for release by Canon. The business is also creating technology that enables digital signatures to be added to videos and an image management app to tell whether images are taken by humans.
In addition to marking images as real images, some other companies are looking at ways of identifying AI images as well. Last year, Intel developed a way to to determine whether an image was real by analyzing skin color changes. In August 2023, Google also released a tool to add invisible watermarks to AI-generated images.
Similarly, Google Search has built-in tools to help you find high-quality information and make sense of what you’re seeing online. In a blog post in October 2023, it also listed three new ways to check images and sources online.
Fact-checker at The FactheckHub | [email protected] |  + posts

Seasoned fact-checker and researcher Fatimah Quadri has written numerous fact-checks, explainers, and media literacy pieces for The FactCheckHub in an effort to combat information disorder. She can be reached at sunmibola_q on X or [email protected].

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