01 · Asset
Which artifact is the record about?
Identify the exact file, stream, or referenced asset. Ask how the claimed asset is bound to the record and what may happen if metadata is removed, altered, or separated.
Foundation 02 · Provenance records
Provenance can show
a relationship.
A provenance record can help a reader inspect how an asset relates to its assertions, signers, bindings, and changes. It does not turn a weak statement into a strong one or replace the reader’s judgment.
Learning boundary. This lesson explains a provenance-inspection method. It does not validate a C2PA manifest, authenticate a specific file, determine author identity, establish truth, or provide an implementation or security assessment.
Learning objective
Read a provenance record as evidence about a record—not as a universal trust score.
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to identify the asset, claim, signer, content binding, assertions, validation state, and missing context that a provenance record makes available to a reader.
02 · Claim
Who signed which assertions?
Separate a signer’s assertion from independent evidence about the assertion. A signature can make the provenance relationship inspectable without establishing the world described by the claim.
03 · Validation
What did a validator actually check?
Read the status, cryptographic checks, and disclosed failures. Do not compress a technical validation result into a broad “real,” “safe,” or “true” label.
04 · Context
What remains outside the manifest?
Assess source reputation, editorial context, claimed event, completeness, recency, and the reader’s intended use. These judgments sit outside a content-binding check.
Practice lab
Inspect a signed media claim without overreading it.
A news image has an attached provenance record listing a creator application, a signer, two edit actions, and a valid content binding. A social post says the record “proves the image is true.” The event shown is not independently described in the record.
- List what the record can help a reader inspect about the image and its claim history.
- Identify the difference between a valid binding and the truth of the depicted event.
- Write the additional reporting, source, or corroboration questions needed for an editorial decision.
- Name the appropriate correction route if the caption or contextual claim is later shown to be wrong.
Source shelf
Read the technical boundary in the specification.
- C2PA Technical Specification 2.4Inspect the specification’s terminology for assets, assertions, claims, content bindings, manifests, validation, and trust signals. Its guiding scope cautions against making value judgments from validated provenance data alone.
- C2PA guidance for AI and MLUse this guidance to ask what an AI-related assertion and its provenance record disclose. It is not a statement that a labelled asset is true, lawful, high quality, or appropriate for a specific use.
Continue the pathway