Media Provenance

Bringing verifiable, tamper-evident provenance metadata to media content

Diagram

Securing Trusted Media

Recent announcements by OpenAI, Meta, Google and others have confirmed the value of an interoperable, tamper-evident way of confirming the source and technical integrity of digital media content as a defence against misinformation. The IPTC, carrying on the work started by Project Origin, brings cryptographically-verifiable provenance metadata to the news media industry.

IPTC Verified News Publishers list

The IPTC oversees a certificate list which can be used by content validators to ensure that a particular news media object has been created by a Verified News Publisher and has not been tampered since its publication.

News publishers apply to the IPTC and verify their identity. The IPTC manages the verification process and the certificate is issued by a well-known Certificate Authority.

Note that the IPTC makes no claims about the truth of the publisher’s content, only about the identity of the publisher.

Content Credentials and C2PA

Our work is based on standards from the Coalition for Content Provenance (C2PA),  the body which oversees a set of standards for media provenance. C2PA members including OpenAI, Meta, Google, Amazon, the BBC, Adobe and Microsoft. The IPTC has a Liaison Agreement as a partner standards-making organisation and has worked closely on the C2PA specification.

The C2PA standards are more commonly known as “Content Credentials”.

 

 

Guidelines and Support

Certificates can be issued to any publisher, but IPTC member organisations also have access to a wealth of best practices, guidelines and support materials based on the real-world experiences of publishers who have implemented IPTC Verified News Publisher certificates for their organisations.

Three IPTC Working Groups meet regularly, allowing members to share best practices, decide on governance questions and help to promote our work.

Upcoming Events

  • IPTC Spring Meeting 2025 - for IPTC members

    Location
    Juan les Pins, France and online
    Date(s)
    May 14 - 16, 2025

  • Photo Metadata Conference 2025 - open to the public

    Location
    Online
    Date(s)
    Date to be confirmed

  • IPTC Autumn Meeting 2025 - for IPTC members

    Location
    Online
    Date(s)
    20 - 22 October, 2025
Latest News

Dec 19 IPTC’s 2024 in review: a year of AI, provenance and partnerships

2024 has flown by, but it was a great year for IPTC. The highlight was definitely the creation of the IPTC’s first new Committee in many years – the Media Provenance Committee, with its working groups for Advocacy and Education, Best Practices and Implementation, and Governance. Thanks to our Committee Chair Bruce MacCormack (and previous […]