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If you've ever wondered how you can prove that a photo you took is genuinely yours — and that it hasn't been manipulated — the C2PA standard is the answer the industry has been building toward. Adopted by Adobe, Microsoft, Google, BBC, and dozens of others, C2PA is rapidly becoming the foundation of digital content trust.
What exactly is a C2PA manifest?
A C2PA manifest is a cryptographically signed block of metadata embedded directly inside your image, video, or PDF. It contains three core components:
- c2pa.assertions — Declarations about the content — who created it, when, with what tool, and whether AI was involved
- c2pa.claim — A claim that binds all assertions together into a single verifiable unit
- c2pa.signature — A digital signature from a trusted certificate authority that proves the manifest wasn't tampered with
Why does it survive sharing?
Unlike EXIF metadata which is stripped by most social platforms, C2PA manifests are embedded in a way that survives typical resizing and re-encoding operations. Even if someone screenshots your image, the original with its manifest remains your primary proof.
AuthenSeal embeds a C2PA manifest into your file at the moment of sealing. The manifest references the SHA-256 hash and RFC 3161 timestamp, creating a complete, independently verifiable chain of custody.
How to verify a C2PA file
You can verify any C2PA file using the free C2PA Verify tool at contentcredentials.org, or use AuthenSeal's own Verify page. Simply upload the file and the verification engine will check the embedded manifest signature against its issuing certificate authority.