Fujifilm is joining the Content Authenticity Initiative and following the path already walked by Canon, Nikon, Leica, and Sony. It will bring C2PA support in some capacity to both its X and GFX cameras.
Tucked at the bottom of its GFX 100S II announcement, Fujifilm says that it is joining the Content Authenticity Initiative to bring verification to its interchangeable lens series cameras.
The Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) was founded by Adobe and is an open, technical standards body that aims to address the prevalence of misleading information online by developing open technical standards for certifying the source and history (otherwise known as provenance) of digital content — namely photos. Recently, it expanded its scope to identifying AI-generated content, too. The CAI is a global community of media and tech companies, including camera manufacturers, working to promote the adoption of the open industry standard called Content Credentials.
“In recent years, it has become an important global objective to work to rebuild trust online by proving the authenticity of photographs, videos and other online content. To further this effort and enable creative and business activities to continue to flourish, Fujifilm has joined two organizations, the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) and the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI),” the company says.
“Fujifilm is collaborating with these organizations in their efforts to ensure that the originator of digital content can be verified online through Content Credentials. Through its association with C2PA and CAI, Fujifilm will assist efforts to develop a system to provide context and history of digital content by providing valuable information, such as the origin and record of content, to the digital file. Fujifilm is committed to ultimately applying this verification solution to its GFX and X series line-up.”
Fujifilm says support will be deployed through firmware updates “as needed.” Further, the timing of that deployment has yet to be determined.
Fujifilm is opting to go with the strategy shared by Sony, which is to update current cameras with the necessary firmware, and not Leica’s strategy, which is to release standalone cameras that support Content Credentials via hardware.
Both are methods the CAI says work, and there is not necessarily an advantage or disadvantage to the effectiveness of each. The firmware strategy does allow companies to update existing cameras, though, while the hardware strategy seems to have faster in-market availability. To date, very few cameras actually have working C2PA support in them, but almost all camera manufacturers have signed on to add it in the future.