Maintenance
Part of Image and video verification: a practical guide
Image and video verification checklist for the desk
Image and video verification checklist for preservation, source identity, origin, metadata, location, time, editing, provenance, safety, credit, and publication.
What to take away
- Check the attached claim as well as the file.
- Preserve the best available version and all relevant publication context.
- Record independent findings for source, place, time, and editing.
- Treat provenance and detector output as evidence with defined limits.
- Review safety, consent, identification, and credit before publishing.
Use this checklist for photographs, video, thumbnails, frame grabs, screenshots, composites, illustrations, and generated media. Add the reviewer, date, evidence location, and result beside each item. Marking "unresolved" is better than checking a box without proof.
Intake and preservation
- Exact URL, account, caption, upload time, and access time saved
- Highest-quality lawful file collected
- Original received file preserved and working copies created
- Platform preview, thumbnail, download, and camera-native file distinguished
- Redirects, deleted pages, edits, and archive captures recorded
- File hash recorded when the risk or workflow warrants it
- Graphic content and sensitive identifiers access-controlled
Claim and source
- Claimed creator, uploader, place, date, event, and people separated
- Camera-recorded, staged, edited, composite, simulated, and generated possibilities considered
- Creator or uploader contacted through a confirmed route where feasible
- Source explains how the file was captured, obtained, and transferred
- Full sequence, original file, and adjacent material requested
- Source access, motive, safety, consent, and conflicts assessed
Origin and prior circulation
- Full-frame reverse searches run
- Distinctive crops and video keyframes searched
- Exact captions, watermarks, signs, and usernames searched
- Mirrored, rotated, cropped, and higher-resolution variants compared
- Earliest confirmed public appearance recorded
- Page dates distinguished from file creation and upload dates
Metadata and signed provenance
- Metadata extracted from the best file without modifying it
- Time zone, clock accuracy, coordinates, software, and encoding checked
- Fields compared with visual evidence and source account
- Missing metadata not treated as proof of manipulation
- Content Credential or other signed provenance validated when present
- Signer identity, assertions, edits, ingredients, and asset binding reviewed
The federal Digital Signature Standard specifies the techniques used to generate and verify such signatures, and its purpose is stated narrowly: the protection of data. Validation tells a newsroom that a particular key signed a particular file and that the file has not changed since. A valid credential can support origin and edit-history findings without replacing scene verification.
Metadata and signed provenance
- Extract metadata from best file without modifying it
- Check time zone, clock accuracy, coordinates, software, encoding
- Compare fields with visual evidence and source account
- Do not treat missing metadata as proof of manipulation
- Validate Content Credential or other signed provenance
- Review signer identity, assertions, edits, ingredients, asset binding
Location
- Language, signs, roads, utilities, terrain, buildings, and skyline inventoried
- Observations kept separate from geographic inferences
- Several stable features matched against independent imagery
- View direction, camera height, lens effects, and later changes considered
- Alternative candidates tested and rejected with reasons
- Precision limited to country, area, street, or viewpoint as evidence allows
- Publication of location reviewed for safety
Time
- Earliest circulation and any source timestamp compared
- Local time zone and daylight-saving rules checked
- Daylight, shadows, weather, vegetation, clothing, and clocks assessed
- Construction, signage, event, transport, and archive changes used to bracket time
- Other independent recordings from the event compared
- Result stated as exact time, range, consistency finding, or unresolved
Video and audio
- Full duration reviewed at normal and slow speed
- Keyframes extracted from meaningful intervals and cuts
- Speech and visible text transcribed and translated carefully
- Audio continuity, synchronization, and environmental sound assessed
- Cuts, loops, speed changes, overlays, and missing lead-in noted
- Longer and alternate-angle recordings sought
The National Archives bulletin on metadata for permanent electronic records defines metadata as elements answering who, what, where, when, and why about a record. The bulletin requires agencies to hand over enough for the archive to identify, service, and interpret the material later.
A newsroom receiving footage should seek those fields from the creator. Explain any gaps rather than reconstructing them as facts.
Editing and forensic review
- Crop, color, stabilization, redaction, compression, and captioning distinguished
- Material effect of each edit assessed
- Technical tool, version, settings, input, and output saved
- Detector limitations and suitable comparison data recorded
- Specialist review obtained for a high-risk technical conclusion
- No single artifact or model score presented as conclusive
Publication and safety
- Caption says what is confirmed and what remains unresolved
- Illustration, simulation, reenactment, composite, and generation labeled
- Creator credit and license checked at the exact asset page
- Consent, dignity, identification, minors, victims, and location risk reviewed
- Headline, thumbnail, alt text, social crop, and video poster frame checked
- Evidence package and final publication version preserved
- Correction plan covers every distributed copy
Common questions
Is every item required for every file?
No. Record why an item does not apply and complete the checks that affect the claim and risk.
Can a screenshot be verified?
It can be linked to a source or event, but it lacks much of the file and page context needed for stronger conclusions.
Should metadata be published?
Only fields needed for the story and safe to disclose. Coordinates and device details can expose people.
What does a final status look like?
Use component findings such as "source confirmed, location confirmed, date narrowed to two days, editing unresolved."
