Content Credentials
plural noun
Machine-readable provenance records attached to digital media, showing where it came from and what happened to it. A birth certificate for the file, not a certificate of truth.
Also known as digital content credentials
Content Credentials are machine-readable provenance records attached to digital media. They can record where an image came from, which device captured it and what edits followed.
The book calls this a birth certificate for the file. That is useful because looking for strange fingers and melted lettering is not a serious long-term verification system. As generated material improves, appearance tells us less.
A credential does not prove that the photograph is honest, kind or correctly interpreted. It proves something narrower and valuable: a traceable history. The difficult part is keeping that history attached when platforms strip metadata on upload. Provenance can exist before the plumbing reliably carries it.
Where it comes up in the sources
Works in the library that use this word. Matched on the word itself, so it is a starting point rather than a reading list.