Apple claims the iPhone 18 Pro camera is more secure than your Android

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TL;DR

• Apple launched “Reference Image,” a new verified photography mode, with the iPhone 18 Pro series.
• The company claims its implementation is more secure than C2PA-based systems used in Android phones.
• Reference Image signs pictures at the sensor level, whereas C2PA signs images after they are processed.

Google introduced verified photography with the Pixel 10 series using the C2PA standard and also brought it to the Pixel 11 range. Apple, by contrast, only started offering support for verified photography with the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max — an entire generation after the Pixel 10 series. However, the company now claims its “Reference Image” is much better than the C2PA standard used by companies like Google and Samsung.

In a new blog post, Apple shared extensive insights into how Reference Image works and why it’s better than anything else available to the general public. Reference Image is an opt-in feature that works on the primary camera of the iPhone 18 Pro series. It adds a cryptographic signature to the photo the moment the sensor captures it, before any image processing. However, it’s limited to the main sensor and can’t add verification signatures to photos taken by the ultrawide or telephoto cameras.




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