2021 update from CAI: full of milestones and just getting started

This time last year, I wrote about putting the groundwork in place for critical progress in 2021. The Content Authenticity Initiative aspired to achieve new goals in establishing the standard for digital provenance, releasing products in the Adobe Creative Cloud, and pushing forward with new, meaningful collaborations. With this engaged community, we have done these things — and there is much more to accomplish over the coming years. Here’s a brief look back at 2021 and a look forward at what is to come. 

It was a busy second year for the CAI in our work to address misinformation and empower creators to use powerful tools responsibly, with proper attribution. As we witness the increasing perils of disinformation, I’m encouraged by the myriad efforts and alliances taking meaningful action, working across industries, governments, and open source communities to restore transparency and trust to media. 

Having started in late 2019 with just three founding partners (Adobe, the New York Times Company, and Twitter), we recently passed the 500-member mark, adding AFP, Getty Images, The Washington Post, Gannett, DPA, Stern, Nikon, DFINITY, Reface, McClatchy, Wacom, and many others. This is a testament to the urgency we all feel to build provenance standards now, and to do it in the open with the broadest possible set of contributors. 

In October, at Adobe MAX, we launched a publicly-available beta version of Content Credentials within Photoshop, allowing users to view and attach provenance to their work.  

In addition, all images downloaded from Adobe Stock (around 300,000 images per day) now come with Content Credentials attached. Behance now also supports Content Credentials in its single image view, where creators can display attribution and history of their work and explore the digital provenance of other projects. 

This year, we launched several case studies and proof of concept implementations, working with Reuters and the Starling Lab, the NYT R&D team, SmartFrame, and the VII photo agency. We used next generation secure capture devices from Truepic with Qualcomm hardware, showcasing digital provenance applications in photojournalism, photo verification, decentralized media preservation, and more.  

As part of our commitment to raising awareness of digital content provenance inside and outside of our community, we hosted four more quarterly events in 2021, covering: 

• Reuters/Starling Lab use of provenance technology while covering the 78-day period between the US Presidential Election and the inauguration;
• The world of deepfake videos and the impending prevalence of synthetic media of all kinds;
• Demystifying the work being done by the C2PA standards organization (which underpins everything that the CAI team does);
• Our proof-of-concept work with the VII Agency about the value and importance of the CAI to photojournalism. 

We also relaunched our website, with new sections, and introduced the new CAI logo, which aligns perfectly with our mission of bringing transparency to the Web.  

We end the year looking ahead to the upcoming launch of v.1.0 of the C2PA specification (now in draft form), which will allow anyone in the space to begin implementing future-proof, robust provenance technology. I believe we will see implementations in areas the CAI team has not yet imagined — this is the power of open community.  

In 2022, with your help, the CAI will push forward with new implementations, more events, and opportunities for collaboration with Adobe and the entire ecosystem. The C2PA will continue to develop the core specification and essential guidance documents including recommendations for user experience, bolstered by deep UX research and experimentation. And the CAI will, as always, be responsive to exciting, relevant developments in digital identity, decentralized ownership, synthetic content and, yes, even the metaverse. 

As we enter the end-of-year season, I ask all our readers to do a few things: 

• Save the date for January 26, when the C2PA will host a virtual summit event with demos, panels, and talks. This will be an historic moment you may want to be a part of! 
• Join the CAI if you aren’t already a member. It is the best way to keep abreast of developments from the latest provenance-enabled products to the progression of the standards and free tooling.  
• If you are interested in early access to the open source projects being developed by the Content Authenticity Initiative, please let us know here. 

See you in 2022!