How To Verify Image Provenance In Chrome

Provenance means an image's origin and history: who made it, with what, and what happened to it after. Chrome has built-in tools for part of this, and extensions add more.

Built in: Google Lens and "About this image"

• Search with Google Lens: right-click any image and choose it to find other copies and similar images online.
• About this image: in Google Search and Lens results, this shows when Google first indexed the image, how other sites describe it, and metadata such as AI labels when available. Images made with Google's AI tools carry an invisible SynthID watermark that Google can detect.

Content Credentials

Content Credentials (C2PA) are a signed record of an image's history attached to the file. They're added by some AI tools, editing apps, cameras and news organizations.

• Adobe Content Authenticity extension: shows when images on a page carry credentials and lets you inspect them.
• Content Credentials Verify: upload a file or paste its address for the full history, including whether the signature is valid.

File metadata

AI Image Detector (made by Patrick Bushe, who runs this site) reads EXIF, IPTC, XMP and PNG metadata when you right-click an image. It shows camera details, editing software, AI generator names and AI tags, with a verdict. The standard check runs in your browser without uploading the image. It notes when Content Credentials exist but doesn't validate them, so confirm those on Content Credentials Verify.

A quick routine

1. Right-click and check the metadata.
2. If Content Credentials exist, verify them.
3. Search with Google Lens and look for the earliest copy.
4. Check "About this image" in the results.

The gap

Most images on social media and messaging apps have had metadata and credentials stripped. Provenance tools work best on images from news sites, photo agencies, brands and original sources.

See checking C2PA Content Credentials and verifying image sources.