Media Provenance

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.

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”.

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.