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Deepfake detection vs signed provenance

DeepfakeDeepfake: Image, audio or video made or changed by AI so it looks real and could fool people. detection scans a video, image or voice for signs of fakery and gives a likelihood. Signed provenanceContent provenance: The record of where a piece of content came from and how it changed, carried with the content itself. works the other way: signed media carries a record of who signed it, what they declared, and whether it changed.

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Provenance reads back a signed record: signed by Town Daily, made with AI: no, unchanged since signing. Detection runs unsigned text through an AI detector and returns a guess, such as 72 percent likely AI.
Provenance is a record anyone can check. Detection is a guess with a score.

Side by side

Deepfake detection and signed provenance, side by side
Deepfake detectionSigned provenance
Question it answersDoes this look synthetic?Who signed this, what did they declare, and did it change?
When it worksAfter the fact, on any fileOn media signed when it was made
ResultA likelihood scoreValid, changed or no label
Media with no labelStill gets a scoreUnknown. No label does not mean fake
Names the sourceNoYes, the signer
Declares AIGuessesThe maker states it, as a digital source typeDigital source type: A field in the label that says how content was made: captured by a camera, made by AI, or a mix.

When to use each

Detection
To screen media from unknown sources, where nothing was signed.
Provenance
For your own media, so viewers can check it came from you.
Both
Newsrooms and platforms check labels first, then screen what has none.

What a label shows, and what it does not

Four of the five answers a provenance check can give: Verified, Modified after signing, Issuer not recognized, and No provenance found. The fifth is Could not verify.
A check reports who signed and whether the content changed. It never says whether the content is true.
Shows
Who signed the file, what they declared, including AI, and whether it changed since.
Does not show
That the scene is true, or that a file with no label is fake.

Where the label lives

A file signed with a label and a watermark loses its label when a site strips metadata; a checker finds the watermark, which points back to the signed record, shown as recovered.
If a site strips the label, a supported watermark can lead back to the signed record. The result says it was recovered.

The label is a C2PA manifestC2PA manifest: The signed label itself: a small package inside a file that records who signed it, what they declared and how to check it. inside the image, audio or video file. A hard bindingHard binding: A hash of the content's signed bytes stored in the label, so a change to those bytes makes the check fail. ties it to the exact file, so any edit shows. Some platforms strip it when they re-encode an upload. A supported watermarkWatermark: A mark placed in the content itself, visible or hidden, so it can be found again after the file is copied. can then lead back to the record.

How a stripped label is found again

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