Verance said it is offering watermarking technology designed to protect broadcast news from airing deep fake video generated using artificial intelligence.
The Verance Aspect technology uses open watermarking standards to enable social media platforms to authenticate broadcast content in user upload, enhancing public trust in media and reducing the impact of disinformation.
Broadcasters including Graham Media Group, Gray Media, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Capitol Broadcasting have already deployed watermarketing using Verance Aspect.
“These tools we are providing to enable reliable authentication of broadcast news content through open standards like ATSC watermarking and C2PA provenance are essential,” said Nil Shah, CEO of Verance. “They represent a significant step toward maintaining public trust and ensuring the integrity of the information that shapes our world in this contentious election year and beyond.”
Verances technology stems from watermarking standards developed and published by the ATSC and the provenance authentication technology standards consortium C2PA.
C2PA authentication requires signed metadata that cannot be transmitted through existing content distribution paths. ATSC watermarking enables recipients of broadcast content to locate the absent C2PA metadata by embedding imperceptible URLs throughout the broadcast audio and video that survives any distribution path.
“At Gray, we believe in the power of trustworthy journalism. By integrating Verance Aspect watermarking with C2PA standards, we’re not just protecting our content; we’re reinforcing the credibility of broadcast news in an age where AI-driven misinformation is a significant threat. This technology is an important part of ensuring the public receives verified, unaltered information,” said David Burke, senior VP and CTO of Gray,
“Ensuring our viewers have the highest confidence in our programming is critical to our business,” added Mike Kralec, senior VPand CTO for Sinclair. “We believe C2PA, through its ability to authenticate the name of content creators or distribution services, can play a central role in future end-to-end technical architectures and workflows. We applaud C2PA and Verance for recognizing that authentication of creators and distributors is absolutely essential to the advanced workflows our industry will rely on in the future.”