Apple Reference Image: A New Approach for Verified Photography

Post by CrazyStat » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 1:39 PM UTC

JW_00000 wrote: post #238

alwillis wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is really clever from Apple. The journalist use case is just the PR story. This will be really useful for identity verification and insurance apps, and has the potential to shift from "you need a smartphone to be able to live normally" to "you need an iPhone to be able to live normally". You have it all wrong. Apple Reference Image is not an id system; it's primarily a way to attest that the pixels recorded by…

> Apple Reference Image is not an id system; it's primarily a way to attest that the pixels recorded by the camera sensor have not been altered in any way; the pixels, metadata and timestamp are all cryptographically signed. > There's no way to link a reference image to a person; it's also not possible to determine if a pair of images came from the same device. Some banking apps nowadays ask you to upload a photo of…

Post by PunchyHamster » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 1:54 PM UTC

alwillis wrote: post #165

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #62

This is really clever from Apple. The journalist use case is just the PR story. This will be really useful for identity verification and insurance apps, and has the potential to shift from "you need a smartphone to be able to live normally" to "you need an iPhone to be able to live normally". There are already plenty of insurances that require you to submit claims through a smartphone app that tries to essentially do…

> This is really clever from Apple. The journalist use case is just the PR story. This will be really useful for identity verification and insurance apps, and has the potential to shift from "you need a smartphone to be able to live normally" to "you need an iPhone to be able to live normally". You have it all wrong. Apple Reference Image is not an id system; it's primarily a way to attest that the pixels recorded by…

Post by PunchyHamster » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 1:55 PM UTC

rickdeckard wrote: post #150

yreg wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now the idea is that the insurance company discontinues the App and the (untrusted) customer must have an iPhone 18 Pro to make an insurance claim? In a couple of years it will be almost any iPhone instead of 18 Pro. And if it catches on, other phone vendors will provide a similar service.

So the insurance would then, instead of contracting the current service-provider for the 3rd party app, contract also with Apple and, let's say Samsung? And then stop the 3rd party app which is vendor-agnostic and works on all devices? I'd say that's unlikely. IF that's an industry this Apple-feature will disrupt, it seems it will barely have an impact on the process of insurance companies themselves, but will actual…

Post by PunchyHamster » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 1:58 PM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #101

modeless wrote: post #79

This is so insanely complex and requires placing trust in the correctness of so many pieces, many of them closed-source. And uploading every verified "developed" image to Apple's servers. And giving up full control of the software and hardware you "own". All to achieve a goal of "verifying" photons, which is only a part of the real problem of verifying the truth of an event that was photographed. I hope that companie…

Because it’s impossible to implement this feature in open source and out in the open. It relies on a locked down image pipeline and hidden key.

Post by eutropia » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 2:04 PM UTC

tristanj wrote: post #3

Apple doesn't address the modified photo replay situation, where you take a picture of an already edited image. Photoshop / AI-gen an image -> display on a high-resolution monitor -> photograph the monitor with iPhone 18 Pro -> valid Apple Reference image. To get valid reference photos, you can go to the actual physical location, put the iPhone/monitor in a cardboard box to block external light, then photograph the m…