C2PA (Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity)

C2PA is an industry-standard technical specification designed to verify the origin and history of digital media. Formed through the merger of the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) and Project Origin, it provides a unified framework for cryptographically binding provenance data to assets. By 2026, C2PA has become the architectural backbone for the 'Content Credentials' ecosystem, mandated by global regulators to distinguish human-made content from AI-generated media. Technically, the standard utilizes a Merkle-tree-based manifest store containing signed 'assertions' (metadata regarding edits, tools, and timestamps) that are embedded directly into JUMBF (JPEG Universal Metadata Box Format) or sidecar files. This allows for an immutable audit trail that persists across platforms. Architecturally, it relies on a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to ensure that the entity signing the manifest is verified by a trusted certificate authority. As we move into late 2026, C2PA's integration into hardware-level camera sensors (Leica, Sony) and browser-level verification (Chrome, Safari) has solidified its position as the primary defense against misinformation and synthetic media exploitation in the enterprise sector.