Integrity Verification
Definition
The branch of authentication that determines whether a recording's content has been altered after original capture. Methods include metadata consistency checks, compression artefact analysis, noise modelling, and clone detection.
- Field
- Media authentication
- Checks used
- Metadata, compression artefacts, noise, clone detection
- Contrasts with
- Source authentication (device/origin identity)
- Typical target
- Digital audio and video recordings
Common questions
How does integrity verification differ from source authentication?+
Source authentication asks which device or original recording produced a file. Integrity verification asks whether that file's content has been changed since capture, through editing, splicing, or re-encoding, regardless of which device made it.
Can a recording pass integrity verification and still be misleading?+
Yes. An unedited recording can still be taken out of context or selectively captured. Integrity verification confirms the bitstream was not altered after capture, it does not evaluate whether the recorded event was fairly represented.
Related terms
- C2PA (Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity)
- An open technical standard that embeds cryptographically signed provenance assertions into media files at the point of capture or editing. A C2PA...
- Deepfake
- Synthetic or AI-manipulated media in which a person's likeness, voice, or both are generated or substituted using machine learning methods. Detection relies...
- Photo Response Non-Uniformity (PRNU)
- A fixed-pattern noise component caused by microscopic sensitivity differences between individual sensor pixels. PRNU is deterministic and camera-specific, making it a sensor...
- Source Identification
- The branch of authentication that determines whether a recording originates from a claimed device, person, or system. Methods include Photo Response Non-Uniformity...
- Steganography
- The practice of hiding data within a digital image by making imperceptible modifications to pixel values. In the forensics context, steganographic modifications...