Sony levels up with its in-camera authenticity testing

Sony has completed the second round of testing its “in-camera” authenticity technology. The camera maker collaborated with the Associated Press and Camera Bits to build a tool that will help mainly news organizations identify manipulated images. It will be available on Sony Alpha 9 III, Alpha 1, and Alpha 7S III cameras via a firmware update. Sony has been working on this technology for several years, and it is now coming in Spring 2024.

Sony concludes the second round of in-camera authenticity testing

With its upcoming “in-camera” authenticity technology, Sony wants to take on manipulated media, including AI-generated media. It says this technology will bring a digital signature that will mark a “birth certificate for images.” These photos will store lots of metadata for images, including if they were edited at any time.

Neal Manowitz, Sony Electronics’ President and COO, explains that manipulated images not only harm photojournalists or news agency partners but society as a whole.

“Fake and manipulated images are a major concern for news organizations…they erode the public’s trust in factual, accurate imagery,” said David Ake, AP’s Director of Photography. Ake noted that AP is proud to work alongside Sony in this process.

It looks promising on camera, but would it come to phones too?

Sony hasn’t mentioned its plans to incorporate its in-camera authenticity technology into its flagship Xperia phones. Most likely, the Japanese tech major will launch its next flagship with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which boasts several AI advancements for image and video processing. It offers features like “photo expansion” where it smartly fills out a picture and “video object eraser”. The latter works as the name suggests, it can even remove individuals from a video.

Most importantly, Sony isn’t the first company to come up with this idea. Leica had unveiled the M11-P. Similar to the upcoming tech, its photos carry a Content Credential Label. It contains the time and date of when the photo was taken and if any potential edits have been made. But it costs an arm and a leg—a whopping $9000. In contrast, it is much more than Sony’s Alpha models.