What is the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA)?

The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) is a Joint Development Foundation project dedicated to combating digital misinformation and content fraud.

Its primary goal is to provide an open technical standard that allows publishers, creators, and consumers to trace the origin and history (provenance) of digital content, such as images, videos, audio, and documents.

Key Aspects of C2PA

• Open Standard: They develop and promote an open, globally adoptable technical standard often referred to as Content Credentials.
• Content Credentials: This standard functions like a “nutrition label” for digital content. It is a tamper-evident metadata that travels with the content, allowing anyone to view a record of:
  • Origin: Who created the content and how (e.g., from a camera, a piece of software, or an AI generator).
  • Edits: A record of modifications made over the content’s lifecycle.
• Authentication: The standard uses cryptographic binding techniques (like hashing and digital signatures) to ensure the provenance data is reliable and hasn’t been tampered with.
• Members: C2PA was founded in 2021 by major technology and media companies and has since grown to include many influential organizations, such as:
  • Adobe
  • Microsoft
  • Google
  • OpenAI
  • BBC
  • Intel
  • Sony
  • Truepic

The C2PA’s work unifies the efforts of previous initiatives like the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) and Project Origin to establish a unified, end-to-end provenance solution for the digital world.