Nine months after announcing its Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) for preventing image theft and manipulation online, Adobe has just released details on how it will all work in its newly published white paper, Setting the Standard for Content Attribution.

AS CAI director Andy Parson writes on the Adobe blog, this “marks a significant milestone for the CAI as we publish our white paper, Setting the Standard for Content Attribution. It addresses the mounting challenges of inauthentic media and our proposal for an industry-standard content attribution solution that will enable creators to securely attach their identity and other information to their work before they share it with the world. The need to combat intentionally deceptive content has never been more urgent.”

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Parson goes on to say that, according to a 2019 study by the Pew Research Center, nearly two-thirds of Americans say that synthetic or altered images and videos create confusion about the facts of current issues and events. “In recent months, social media sites and news organizations have begun applying ‘manipulated media’ tags to doctored images and videos that are meant to mislead or stoke division among the public. The challenge is only growing as the volume of inauthentic media increases.”

There are 3 distinct areas of the CAI mapped out in the white paper, as excerpted below:

“First is detection of deliberately deceptive media. Through a combination of algorithmic identification and human-centered verification of intentionally misleading content the amount of inauthentic content can be reduced.

“Second, education is essential. Well-intentioned creators and consumers will need to understand the danger of disinformation and the use of techniques to eradicate it. They must also understand ways to use sophisticated creative tools responsibly.

“Third, content attribution, which is the focus of this paper. Often referred to as provenance, attribution empowers content creators and editors, regardless of their geographic location or degree of access to technology, to disclose information about who created or changed an asset, what was changed and how it was changed. Content with attribution exposes indicators of authenticity so that consumers can have awareness of who has altered content and what exactly has been changed. This ability to provide content attribution for creators, publishers and consumers.”

As The Verge reports, “Adobe wants users to go a layer deeper. To actually see what happened to that asset, who it came from, where it came from, and what happened to it. People can still download and edit the image, take a screenshot of it, or interact the way they would any picture. Any CAI metadata tags will show that the image was manipulated, however. Adobe is basically encouraging adding valuable context and viewing any untagged photos with suspicion, rather than trying to literally stop plagiarism or fakery.”

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The success of CAI as a standard, The Verge goes on to write, “will depend on hardware and software companies cooperating. “Camera and smartphone makers would need to implement a system for embedding CAI data into photos as they’re captured and edited, software companies (including Adobe’s competitors) would need to implement a new CAI tag every time an edit is made, and publishers/social media sites would need to display CAI information prominently enough that people actually take note, without overwhelming users.”

The hope is that the system becomes so wide-spread that any photo without CAI data attached will be viewed with increased skepticism, while CAI images will be seen as above-board and otherwise “manipulation proof.” Here’s hoping.

To read the full white paper, click here. No official launch date seems to be set yet, but Adobe plans to release a prototype CAI tagging system to a subset of Photoshop and Behance users by the end of 2020.