Why We Built Verifieer Mij: Investing in Trust infrastructures
Generative AI and deepfakes make the distinction between fact and fiction increasingly difficult for consumers to trust authoritative sources of information, news and knowledge.. It has become alarmingly easy to imitate the style, logos, and tone of voice of reputable media producers, as well as to digitally manipulate their images and videos. We need to shore up our trust infrastructure and enable people to verify the actual sender of a message. Additionally, our digital infrastructure is being viewed through a new lens due to geopolitical and sovereignty challenges.
Media authenticity is ultimately about provenance, integrity, and transparency. To achieve this, Media Campus NL has developed an independent reference implementation of the C2PA specification for the Dutch market. This includes two parts: a means to sign media productions with a digital seal, and a means to verify signed media without dependence on Big Tech companies.
C2PA as a Digital Wax Seal
To understand C2PA, it helps to use an analogy from history. In the Middle Ages, letters from authoritative sources were closed with a wax seal that proved the letter had not been opened or altered in transit, while simultaneously confirming who sent it.
The international specification by the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) acts as a digital equivalent. It is a seal that shows the contents of a file have not been altered in transit and provides a means to verify the identity of the sender.
A C2PA manifest (the seal) confirms whether a file has been modified since it was signed. It confirms the integrity of the file. However, a digital seal does not verify whether the content itself is factually true, or objective. Just like the letters from the Middle Ages, they only indicate the source and integrity. C2PA is not a truth machine.
The Three Limitations of C2PA Implementations
C2PA is a powerful tool for content provenance; it is adopted by many large technology companies and is for example added to AI-generated content by many large LLM providers. However, most standard industry implementations suffer from three critical vulnerabilities:
- Identity Fraud Risk: Standard C2PA lacks a mandatory link to a verified digital identity. A bad actor with technical know-how can easily create a digital seal that appears to belong to a reputable news outlet or government agency.
- Privacy Risks: Most existing tools to verify C2PA seals run on the infrastructure of, or are developed and maintained by, commercial tech giants like Adobe and Microsoft. These systems might track browsing and viewing habits to build user profiles. Citizens should not have to pay for content verification with their personal privacy.
- Over-reliance on Big Tech: In standard C2PA models, certificate trust relies heavily on a US-dominated consortium. It is as if the wax for the seal is only provided from one source. Relying solely on foreign tech monopolies undermines European digital sovereignty and creates a risk to the tech-sovereignty of Europe.
The Solution: A Sovereign, Privacy-First Platform
To resolve these vulnerabilities, Media Campus NL, the VPRO, and Dawn Technology – with financial support from the SIDN Fonds and interest from industry partners like ANP, RTL, and THETA – developed an open-source reference implementation of C2PA with three added essential building blocks:
- Verifiable Digital Identity: We make it possible to bind C2PA seals to verified digital identities. Consumers can be certain which specific organization or editorial team placed the seal.
- Independent & Privacy-Friendly Verification: Our platform, Verifieer Mij, acts as an independent, open source validation service. Citizens can safely inspect media files without leaking tracking data to Big Tech servers. We do not track or log what you verify.
- Digital Sovereignty: While Verifieer Mij trusts standard C2PA certificates, it also allows the integration of independent external certificates. This ensures we remain digitally sovereign rather than tied exclusively to commercial platforms.
Investing in Trust Infrastructures for Media
Technological tools do remove the threats of fake news, but they can restore trust in authoritative senders. Audiences deserve to know that when they watch or read content from a trusted broadcaster, it actually originated from that organization and was not altered along the way.
Verifieer Mij provides the public infrastructure needed to safeguard media authenticity, user privacy, and digital sovereignty in an era where seeing is no longer automatically believing.
