Public content provenance for organisations

In today's digital age, information on the internet cannot be relied on consistently as a source of truth. The rapid rise in the volume of available information and the accelerated pace of content generation, particularly through Artificial Intelligence (AI), mean the internet has become a battleground for interference and malicious cyber activities. 

In this environment, organisations are finding it increasingly challenging to ensure the authenticity and integrity of their information and so they must rethink how they establish and maintain trust with their audiences. Additionally, as highlighted in the recent NCSC Assessment and CSE report, AI-enabled capabilities continue to proliferate to cyber criminals, and states are beginning to integrate these technologies into their cyber capabilities. Organisations will therefore need tools to improve their resilience and security to protect the integrity of their data and information. A cornerstone of these efforts is the establishment of provenance for digital content.

Provenance refers to the place of origin. It is used in the physical world to verify the authenticity of artefacts, but it is also relevant in the online world.  Many organisations already employ versioning and logging systems to establish provenance for internal documents. However, these systems are often useful only within the organisation. To build stronger trust with external audiences, organisations need to improve how they address the public provenance of their information.