// THE VERGE — MOBILE & WEB
Apple’s new iPhone camera mode promises to prove your photo isn’t AI
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A new sensor in the iPhone 18 Pro will authenticate photos captured in Reference mode.
A new sensor in the iPhone 18 Pro will authenticate photos captured in Reference mode.
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Apple is launching a new way to prove that the picture you took isn’t manipulated by AI. A new feature, called “Reference Image,” will arrive with the iPhone 18 Pro lineup later this month and is supposed to use the device’s new camera sensor to “sign every pixel it sees.”
The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max will only authenticate photos when placed into Reference mode. Once the camera captures signed sensor data, Apple says its Private Cloud Compute will develop it “into an unalterable reference image” that can be viewed in the Photos app. You’ll be able to compare the reference image with other versions of the photo to see if any edits were made.
As AI-generated images and videos become more realistic, several new standards have emerged to label images not created by a human, such as SynthID, C2PA, and Meta’s Content Seal. Apple is putting a twist on these methods by building authentication directly into its hardware.