Trust, authenticity and control
Follow the methods used to connect information with identity, authority, custody and trust, from documentary seals to digital provenance. This pathway follows the main changes in chronological order and shows which older practices continued beside them.
How do we decide whether information is genuine and who controls it?
Five turning points
Seals, signatures and documentary authentication
Authentication links a record to a person, office, household, institution or delegated authority. The link may be personal, such as a named signature, or role-based, such as an official seal that remains valid when office-holders change.
Open topic →Digital Provenance and Authenticity Systems
A file can circulate independently of its creator, publication page, caption and chain of custody. Transformations may leave no obvious surface evidence, while benign processing can resemble manipulation.
Open topic →Follow the history from beginning to present
Seals, signatures and documentary authentication
A durable record is useful only when people can decide whether it is genuine, who authorised it, whether it has been altered and what social act it is meant to perform.
Digital Provenance and Authenticity Systems
Digital provenance and authenticity systems record and verify claims about the origin and transformation history of digital objects.