Cloudflare Launches One-Click Content Credentials to Combat AI-Generated Image Misinformation

Cloudflare Launches One-Click Content Credentials to Track Image Authenticity and Preserve Creator Attribution

Industry-first solution now allows publishers and media organizations to preserve the digital history of their images across Cloudflare's global network Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE: NET), the leading connectivity cloud company, today announced a new, one-click solution for content creators and publishers to seamlessly preserve the digital history of an image-from how an image was created, and by whom, to edits and resizes-across the Cloudflare network. By attaching this digital 'nutrition label,' or Content Credentials, directly to an image, creators can be credited for their work and consumers can easily verify the origin and alterations of digital content. Content Credentials is based on standards from the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), an open technical standard providing publishers, creators, and consumers the ability to trace the origin of different types of media. In addition, Cloudflare has also joined the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), an Adobe-led community of over 4,000 members globally committed to driving mainstream support and adoption for Content Credentials as the global standard for content provenance and authenticity. The ability to instantly share photos globally on the Internet comes with a potential drawback: once uploaded, it becomes difficult to verify an image's authenticity. The rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has accelerated this challenge by lowering the barriers to image manipulation. It is easier than ever to create highly convincing fake photos, which can make it difficult for consumers to understand what is trustworthy. If a photo of a celebrity endorsing a product or a video of UFOs goes viral, the ability to confirm if it was taken with a smartphone or camera, or wholly created using an AI tool, can provide critical context to help consumers make informed decisions. "The future of the Internet depends on trust and authenticity," said Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO, Cloudflare. "By integrating Content Credentials across our global network, we can help media and news organizations to verify authenticity and maintain ownership of their work, wherever it moves online. This isn't just about securing individual images -- it's about giving publishers the tools they need to preserve trust and remain relevant in the age of AI." "Cloudflare's implementation of Content Credentials is a major win for Content Credentials, particularly at the final stages of the content creation and management lifecycle" said Andy Parsons, Senior Director Content Authenticity at Adobe. "Ensuring these credentials are always available at the edge provides valuable 'trust signals,' ensuring those who interact with content online have confidence in what they engage with, especially with the rise of generative AI and deepfakes. Cloudflare helps strengthen the integrity of digital content, supporting content authenticity for news organizations and journalists, while also enabling creators to maintain proper attribution." Users of Cloudflare Images, Cloudflare's image storage and optimization solution, can now with one click choose to "Preserve Content Credentials," safeguarding embedded, secure metadata across the entire global Cloudflare network. Once enabled, if an image is resized or transformed in any way using Cloudflare Images, those transformations are recorded using public key cryptography. Anyone who then views the image, or downloads it directly, can verify its digital history using the Adobe Content Authenticity Inspect tool. With today's announcement, Cloudflare is helping to drive global scale and adoption of this valuable content provenance and authenticity standard by making it available across its global network. To learn more, please check out the resources below: Blog: Preserving content provenance by integrating Content Credentials into Cloudflare ImagesContent Authenticity Initiative Blog: Cloudflare becomes the first major content delivery network to implement Content CredentialsProduct Page: Cloudflare Images About Cloudflare Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE: NET) is the leading connectivity cloud company on a mission to help build a better Internet. It empowers organizations to make their employees, applications and networks faster and more secure everywhere, while reducing complexity and cost. Cloudflare's connectivity cloud delivers the most full-featured, unified platform of cloud-native products and developer tools, so any organization can gain the control they need to work, develop, and accelerate their business. Powered by one of the world's largest and most interconnected networks, Cloudflare blocks billions of threats online for its customers every day. It is trusted by millions of organizations - from the largest brands to entrepreneurs and small businesses to nonprofits, humanitarian groups, and governments across the globe. Learn more about Cloudflare's connectivity cloud at cloudflare.com/connectivity-cloud. Learn more about the latest Internet trends and insights at https://radar.cloudflare.com.

Cloudflare Joins CAI and Enables Content Credentials for 20% of the Internet

Cloudflare, the leading connectivity cloud company that hosts around 20% of all websites, launched a one-click Content Credentials system to track image authenticity across the internet and preserve accurate creator attribution. This is a massive deal and a huge win for the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), which Cloudflare has also joined. Content Credentials, based on the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), allow publishers, creators, and regular web users to trace the origin of the media they view. It also ensures that creators can be accurately and consistently credited for their work. "The future of the Internet depends on trust and authenticity," says Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO, Cloudflare. "By integrating Content Credentials across our global network, we can help media and news organizations to verify authenticity and maintain ownership of their work, wherever it moves online. This isn't just about securing individual images -- it's about giving publishers the tools they need to preserve trust and remain relevant in the age of AI." Cloudflare notes that, while it's incredibly powerful to instantly share photos with anyone across the internet, it can become difficult to verify the authenticity of an image or who created it. This is becoming a much more important consideration in the age of generative AI, as it is easier than ever for people to create convincing fake photos, which can go far beyond memes and jokes but have real-world consequences and, over time, significantly and irreparably damage people's trust in photos. In an accompanying blog post, Cloudflare notes that digital content provenance is hugely important. By integrating Content Credentials into its platform, Cloudflare hopes to reduce instances when a photographer has their image stolen and spread across the web, with name and attribution data stripped. "Cloudflare's implementation of Content Credentials is a major win for Content Credentials, particularly at the final stages of the content creation and management lifecycle," explains Andy Parsons, Senior Director Content Authenticity at Adobe. "Ensuring these credentials are always available at the edge provides valuable 'trust signals,' ensuring those who interact with content online have confidence in what they engage with, especially with the rise of generative AI and deepfakes. Cloudflare helps strengthen the integrity of digital content, supporting content authenticity for news organizations and journalists, while also enabling creators to maintain proper attribution," Parsons continues. Many media organizations are already part of the Content Authenticity Initiative, including the BBC, New York Times, and more. However, even if these and other publications rely on C2PA-equipped cameras and editing applications if their content delivery network (CDN) stripped away the C2PA metadata, the rest is moot -- the data is gone when the end user sees it. "If you. Use Cloudflare, that is now a solved problem," the company explains. All the user must do on Cloudflare Images is to enable the new Preserve Content Credentials setting. "The journey from when a Content Credential is applied to a file to when it reaches the viewer can be complex," says Jen Tse of the Content Authenticity Initiative. "For example, a photographer can use a Content Credentials-compliant camera to attach the digital signature at image capture, and preserve the chain of provenance through the editing process, but the metadata can still be stripped away if it's transformed by a CDN at publication. Cloudflare Images's implementation will ensure the last-mile delivery of Content Credentials to the end user when a site owner or content creator opts to preserve them." The connection between the CAI and Cloudflare is strong. Will Allen, Head of AI Control, Privacy, and Media Products at Cloudflare, was previously VP at Adobe and helped establish the C2PA and the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI). Since Allen saw early deepfakes at Adobe in 2018, he has had "this personal drive to help create a way to establish content provenance." "Fast forward to where we are today, and we've seen generative AI transform the world. Through the incredible work of many folks at Adobe and people across industries around the globe, we have aligned on this vision that we can establish and cryptographically verify some level of truth -- from photons to pixels, to how they travel across the web. I've never stopped being obsessed with it, because it feels like unfinished business," Allen says. He notes that camera makers and software companies have made considerable strides in the content authenticity and provenance, but the final piece, the distribution of content on the web, was missing. Allen says that even before joining Cloudflare, he was asking the company to implement the C2PA standard. Cloudflare asked Allen why he didn't just come over and build it. "So that's what I did," he says. Cloudflare's "Preserve Content Credentials" setting is now available to all users across the global Cloudflare network. It is a massive step forward for widespread adoption of the C2PA standard and Content Credentials.