Interesting new tech from Leica of all companies! Their latest M11 variant adds in dedicated hardware to produce authenticity certificates for images. The Verge’s Antonio G. Di Benedetto does a good job breaking down what the announcement means in practice.

When activated, the M11-P will embed an encrypted signature into the DNG raw and JPG files containing the artist’s name, the camera make and model, and the photo EXIF data.

He rightly wonders if this tech will come to other camera makers. One item not considered, Leica has its L2 partnership with Panasonic, so I would expect this tech comes from them and will make it’s way to new Panasonic mirrorless bodies with their next refresh.

Of course, this only means something if these certificates are actually effective in an age of mass produced imagery from LLMs. Given how easy it is to remove watermarks from AI-generated images, these types of certificates for captured images might be a good alternative.