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The free tool below runs entirely in this browser — no account, nothing stored or transmitted. Redact anything you would not want kept before you type it.
Open the companion tool →Why signed metadata is a claim, not a verdict
Content credentials record a chain: which device or app produced the file, whether edits or generation were involved, and which organization signed that record. Each of those is a statement someone made with a key they hold — useful, but not the same as an independent confirmation of what is in the picture.
The common misuse runs in both directions. A file with no credentials is often just a file that passed through a platform that strips metadata, and a file with credentials can carry the 'generated' marker from a tool that makes synthesized media. What the reader can do is read the fields and mark what is unknown.
The protocol
- Open the file's details or its provenance panel in a viewer that shows content credentials. Note the issuing organization and whether the signature validates.
- Look for the claims themselves: captured, edited, or generated, and which tool is named. A 'generated' claim is the file telling you its own origin.
- Check what happens to the chain. A missing link means the file was changed after signing, or by something that does not sign — both are unknowns, not verdicts.
- Treat the absence of credentials as unknown. Most social platforms strip metadata on upload, so no credentials tells you nothing about the image itself.
- Write down what you checked. 'Provenance unknown' is a complete and honest finding when a caption is making a strong claim.
What the tool does
Paste what the file's provenance panel shows and get a line-by-line reading: which claims are signed, where the chain breaks, and what stays unknown. It runs in this browser; nothing is sent or stored.
Limit first: This is a metadata-reading aid, not an image-forensics tool. Credentials can be stripped or attached by anyone with the same tooling, so neither their presence nor their absence proves what an image shows.
Open the companion tool →One human next step
If a file's provenance matters to a decision — a listing, a claim, an insurance photograph — ask the sender for the original file rather than a forwarded copy, and keep both. For disputes, a lawyer or adjuster can say what kind of record carries weight.
Research log and safety checks
AI-assist path: not used for a verdict. This is the §1.2 UIC-10 rule made into a tool: the reading explains what the file claims and explicitly declines to certify the content. §6.10: not a frontier-pace topic.
§0.5 protection result: category is deepfake-media-verification; crisis-adjacent: no; fear/urgency/scarcity toolkit used: no. The protective function is free and the paid feature is convenience only.