Written evidence submitted by Truepic

September 16, 2022

Dear Esteemed Members of the Online Harms and Disinformation Sub-Committee,

Thank you for providing me the opportunity to respond to the “Misinformation and Trusted Voices” inquiry.  I share the Committee’s concern and applaud its effort to investigate how to increase access to authoritative and trusted information today.  I believe that informational exchange has irreversibly digitized, and it is now critical to support an authoritative and transparent ecosystem for the digital future. 

We rely on digital content: Our societies and economies have rapidly digitized, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.  I would encourage the Committee to consider that the need for authoritative information permeates all aspects of our daily existence.  Over 84% of humanity has smartphones, only 15 years after its creation.  This is driving our reliance on digital content, with over 4.7 billion images captured per day, nearly two trillion annually.  Consider how UK citizens leverage the peer-to-peer economy (Uber, Airbnb, Lyft, etc..), obtain information used to make voting decisions (content on social media platforms), meet/hire/date others (online dating sites, LinkedIn, etc..), or even how industry operates today (insurance, real estate, government services, etc..) - nearly all of these wide-ranging scenarios begin with decisions made from digital content, specifically images and videos. As a result, I believe it is necessary to take a broad view of how we can increase the trust and transparency in the digital content we rely on daily.

Synthesis is now accessible: The ease with which digital content can be fabricated and weaponized is proliferating at an unprecedented rate. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the paradigm of media manipulation. Breakthroughs in AI research over the past decade mean it is now possible for machines to generate near-perfect fidelity ‘synthetic’ (or fake) media at scale. AI is powering a revolution in synthetic content generation. Billions of humans will be able to use AI-powered tools to create high-fidelity manipulated media online. Sadly, it is inevitable that much of this synthetic media will be used to defraud, deceive and cause harm online.

The rate of media deception is also not linear.  Media fabrication and synthesis are disproportionately outpacing any effort to detect visual deception.  This disparity will continue because of the sophistication of AI-powered technologies (GANs / Diffusion models) and the velocity and distance by which fabrications can move online - faster than any effort to debunk. Addressing this universal challenge will require a multipronged approach (technology, education, support) which will include all aspects of society. 

National Academies should play a critical role in educating youth on these dynamics and the importance of authoritative digital content.  Students in academies should be trained early on the dangers of deceptive and fraudulent visual/digital content.  Recently, it was reported that Gen Z is using Tik Tok as its primary search engine over Google.  This highlights the importance that National Academies will have in educating youth on the dangers of dubious and deceptive information on social media and the importance of authoritative media. Further, Academies should encourage, through curriculum and partnership with technologies, the practitioning of media literacy and best practices to identify authenticity online. Finally, National Academies can become disseminators of authoritative information by educating students on and adopting new approaches, like digital content provenance, to prepare students for the future. 

Most Promising Way Forward: Provenance: Despite the challenges stated above, I believe that digital content provenance represents the most promising opportunity to increase transparency, trust, and authenticity in digital content. It would be impossible to try and ‘detect’ all the fake media online -- not least because, increasingly, content will be generated by AI, So, by its very definition, it would be inauthentic.

Provenance is about proactively adopting transparency so the medium of visual media - integral to the functioning of 21st-century society -- is not fundamentally denigrated. In this approach,

digital content comes with a chain of provenance, illustrating critical information such as the time, date, and location it was created or any alterations made during its lifetime. Provenance creates a tamper-evident effect on digital content providing transparency to those interacting with it online. 

The basis of which will undergird the future of our digital economy and societies in a safe, scalable, and opt-in manner.  I would encourage the Committee to examine and learn about how digital content provenance can help our societies, businesses, and institutions make better decisions based on what we see and hear online. 

Truepic is a co-founder of the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), the standards body that released the first open standard on digital content provenance. Truepic specializes in secure digital content provenance or authenticating images and videos at the point of creation and aligns with the C2PA standard. This approach empowers those creating digital content to provide transparency into that content when it is created.  Further, platforms, websites, or equipment manufacturers that adopt the open standard will allow their end users to make informed, accurate judgements using the most authoritative and transparent digital content.

I firmly believe that digital content provenance is the foundation of a trusted, authoritative, and transparent digital ecosystem.  We believe that digital content provenance will become a necessary approach for the future of the internet, and National Academies can play a critical role in educating on its promise.

I thank you for considering these comments.

Sincerely,

Mounir Ibrahim

Vice President, Public Affairs and Impact

Truepic