Sony, Canon, and Nikon Join Forces to Embed Digital Fingerprints in Images for Authentication

Sony, Canon, and Nikon, the Japanese companies, are gearing up for their first collaboration to develop a new technology that embeds a digital fingerprint within images captured by their cameras, facilitating easy differentiation from artificially generated images using artificial intelligence.

According to Nikkei Asia, Nikon is preparing to introduce mirrorless professional cameras targeting professional photographers, especially photojournalists, equipped with this new technology.

The digital fingerprint consists of various forms of data that verify the reliability and authenticity of the image captured by the cameras of these three companies. The information includes the capture date, shooting time, geographical coordinates of the shooting location, and the photographer’s name.

This technology comes at the end of a year that witnessed a surge in the production of visual content, and the proliferation of artificial intelligence platforms generating fake images and videos. Consequently, many institutions and companies have started searching for ways to differentiate between genuine and fake images.

The annual photography competition organized by Sony experienced an incident highlighting this danger. German photographer Boris Eldagsen refused to accept an award in the open creativity category for an image titled “Pseudomnesia: Fake Memories.” He confessed that he did not capture the image; instead, he designed it using artificial intelligence techniques.

Eldagsen stated on his website, “AI-generated images should not compete with photographic art in such awards; they are two different entities. AI is not photography, and the competition cannot deal with art created in this manner. Therefore, I will not accept this award.”

It’s worth noting that “Pseudomnesia” is a Latin term meaning “false memory” of events that never occurred, as opposed to merely inaccurate memory.

In the 1940s, the artist used visual language and produced images as fake memories of a non-existent past that no one had photographed. These images were imagined through artificial intelligence and re-edited more than 20 to 40 times.