Overview
ISO/IEC 21617-1:2025 - Information technology - JPEG Trust - Part 1: Core foundation - defines a framework for establishing trust in media assets. The standard focuses on authenticity, provenance, and integrity by specifying secure, reliable annotation and metadata structures for media throughout its life cycle. It is the first edition (2025) and forms the core foundation for the JPEG Trust family of standards.
Key topics and technical scope
The standard organizes trust mechanisms and metadata for media via a set of interoperable components:
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Trust Record & Trust Manifests
- Structure and components of a manifest that records assertions about a media asset.
- Manifest details, declarations and how to reference active manifests.
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Trust Credentials, Indicators and Profiles
- Credential models for media content, manifests, claims, signatures and verifiable credentials.
- Trust indicators and profile definitions used to express levels or types of trust.
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Trust Report
- Specification for generation and content of reports that summarize verification and trust status.
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Media asset life cycle annotations
- Assertions for actions, IPR, metadata bindings (hashes) and extent of modifications.
- Guidance on using existing metadata standards and actor metadata.
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Embedding and referencing
- Use of JUMBF and embedding techniques for JPEG 1, JPEG XT, JPEG XL, JPEG 2000, JPEG XS and other assets.
- Support for external manifests and references to active manifests.
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Identification, content binding and validation
- Actor identification (including verifiable credentials), cryptographic binding to content, digital signatures and validation procedures.
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Privacy and protection
- Anonymization, redaction, obfuscation techniques and guidance for protecting assertions and media content.
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Informative annexes cover threat vectors and the relationship with other initiatives (e.g., C2PA).
Practical applications and who uses it
ISO/IEC 21617-1 is intended for organizations and professionals that create, manage, distribute or verify visual media:
- Media and image software developers implementing provenance metadata and secure embedding.
- Content platforms and social networks that need standardized trust indicators and validation.
- Newsrooms, journalists and fact-checkers for verifying authenticity and provenance.
- Digital asset managers and archives ensuring long-term integrity of collections.
- Forensic analysts and security teams validating media integrity and assembling trust reports.
- Standards bodies and implementers aligning with or extending JPEG Trust and related ecosystems.
Related standards and keywords
- Related standards: other parts of the ISO 21617 series, JPEG format standards.
- SEO keywords: ISO/IEC 21617-1, JPEG Trust, media provenance, media authenticity, digital provenance, trust manifest, trust credential, JUMBF, embedding metadata, verifiable credentials.