Content authenticity

The content-authenticity protocol lets a party sign content at the moment of capture, so any receiver can verify its origin and integrity for itself, with no central authority in the loop. A capture device signs the content, the holder publishes a signed content-authenticity claim to the register, and any receiver checks the capture signature, the anchor proof, and the recomputed commitment independently.

Passport-photo authenticity is the first application explored for this protocol, framed as a pilot or exploration. This overview orients and links; the normative rules live in the versioned specification.

The outcome it delivers

Identity documents, and many other document chains, depend on a photograph or a piece of content that was captured of the right subject, at a known moment, and has not been changed since. This protocol moves the point of trust to the moment of capture, so a receiver can prove for itself that the content in front of it is the one the device produced, rather than relying on the reputation of every hand it passed through.

Shared dependencies

This domain protocol adds no base-layer mechanism of its own. It builds on the shared layer and reuses, as clickable descents:

• The base protocol for data sharing: the record shape, encryption, anchoring, verification, identity, and the register.
• Exchange patterns: the configuration templates it uses, in particular one-to-many and register lookup.
• Runtime concepts it relies on directly: the envelope, keys and derivation, identity and delegation, and addressing and discovery.

Specification

The normative rules live in the versioned specification:

• Content authenticity specification v0.1

Use case

• Passport photo authenticity: the public explainer, with a copy-and-paste diagram.

Working group

This domain protocol is developed in an open working group. Participation is open to organisations, implementers, and domain experts who want to review the taxonomy, propose changes, or help define its domain profiles.

Working-group members: pending consent. No participating party is named here yet. Member names and logos are published only with each party's written consent, and their absence is deliberate, not an omission. This section describes how participation works; it makes no claim that any named party is using the protocol in production. To take part, see Governance and working group.