Daring Fireball: ‘Apple Reference Image: A New Method for Verified Images’

Other business options require a photographer or establishment to
vouch for a picture utilizing their very own credentials. We are involved
this places some photographers, resembling these working in battle
zones, in a troublesome place; it shouldn’t be essential to
forgo anonymity as a way to show picture authenticity. We constructed
Apple Reference Image to keep away from utilizing an express, public
credential for photographers, and to keep away from even implicit public
affiliation between completely different photographs taken by the identical sensor. The
ultimate reference picture is as a substitute signed by Apple’s signing
service, after validation by PCC. That signature is backed by
Apple’s strongest technical ensures.

Our implementation additionally protects the confidentiality of the picture
itself, together with from Apple. Merely capturing a reference picture
ought to by no means expose the precise pixels to Apple or anybody else. We
obtain this by way of the distinctive privateness properties of PCC — the nodes themselves are architected in order that not even Apple can
entry picture information, simply as Apple can not see the knowledge
processed for Apple Intelligence in PCC. While the revocation
service should keep a non-public report of photograph GUIDs and
related sensors to permit for revocation, it by no means has entry to
the picture information, and doesn’t enable for public entry to this
report. And as ultimate revocation checks happen utilizing on-device
lists, a tool by no means reveals to anybody which photograph it’s trying
at as a way to discover out whether or not it’s nonetheless legitimate.