A separate reference image is useful evidence, but its value depends on preserving the original metadata and keeping Apple's verification path available years later.

> Camera companies like Nikon and Canon have embraced a different metadata-driven provenance standard named C2PA Content Credentials — C2PA standing for the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity. Google also supports the C2PA standard in its Pixel phones, and C2PA has some European media company members (Die Zeit, France TV, AFP). But Apple hasn’t signed on to using Content Credentials — and now we know it believes it has a better approach.