Singapore’s Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX) is working with Adobe to test tools that can verify whether digital images and documents have been altered, as deepfakes and synthetic media become harder for public agencies to assess.
HTX and Adobe signed a two-year memorandum of understanding (MOU) focused on content provenance, which records the origin, history and edits made to digital files. The work is aimed at strengthening public safety and trust in images, documents and other digital material used by public agencies.
The agency plans to create a proof of concept based on the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) and the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) standards. It will align with Adobe’s Content Credentials framework, which is designed to carry tamper-evident metadata in digital assets.
HTX will also explore how that framework can be combined with its own digital watermarking techniques, which are designed to help identify manipulated content.
“As digital content becomes increasingly easy to manipulate, safeguarding its authenticity and integrity is essential to maintaining public trust and supporting the Home Team’s operations. Through this collaboration with Adobe, HTX will strengthen our capabilities in content provenance and enhance our ability to detect and respond to manipulated media at scale,” says Chan Tsan, chief executive officer at HTX.
Beyond the trial, Adobe and HTX said they plan to explore content authenticity technologies in computer vision, content intelligence and human-computer interaction.
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HTX will also join Adobe’s Customer Advisory Board, giving the agency a channel to provide feedback on product development and exchange views with industry leaders working on trusted digital content.
“This MOU with HTX represents an exciting milestone as Adobe brings its global expertise in secure content frameworks and cloud deployment. Since founding the Content Authenticity Initiative in 2019, Adobe has championed the widespread adoption of Content Credentials as the industry standard for transparency in digital content, now supported by over 6,000 members,” says Ben Goodman, president for Japan and Asia-Pacific at Adobe.
