Reuters has announced that they are working on an image authentication system that allows picture editors to track changes made to digital pictures reports Dan Chung on his Guardian Blog .
The system being developed with Canon and Adobe is said to provide an audit trail of changes to the image, which would be permanently embedded in the photograph, allowing it to be verified.
The software is being developed after Reuters freelance photographer Adnan Hajj was fired for allegedly manipulating a photo by adding additional plumes of smoke to a Beirut scene using Photoshop.
His editor was also fired, and Hajj’s other photos removed from the Reuters archive, but the incident sparked a debate on how much news pictures could be trusted.