By the time you made your comment, such a system had already been invented, even partially rolled out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_Credentials

Apple's protocol differs in that it requires a timestamping server to sign the file and centralising Apple as the single arbiter of truth. An excellent addition, if you trust Apple and the governments they're friendly with (I don't, especially the latter part).

This is another interesting point. iPhone's do a bunch of post processing to improve image quality. What exactly are we signing as real and not AI manipulated here? How much image processing is allowed before it isn't verified? (do panoramic stitched photos count?)

There are myriad 3rd party camera apps that will give you RAWs straight off the sensor. Apple also has its "ProRAW" format which is a nice middle ground.

According to the description in the article, "an outside observer cannot determine whether any pair of reference images were taken by the same device." and they "avoid even implicit public association between different photos taken by the same sensor"

Whatever that means in detail...

I dont think this is relavent to that use case. It seems like this proposal would be an optional off by default feature. They also seem to be going to lengths to make it privacy first so the verified photos cannot be linked to a specific photographer.

Nothing stops you not verifying, or simply stripping the verification off.

What you are prevented from doing is adding a verification to a photo outside of the iOS image pipeline, or modifying the photo with the verification still in tact.

Or have I understood the feature's capability completely wrong?