Google extends AI transparency based on IPTC standards

An image created with Google's Gemini model. The image contains values for the IPTC Photo Metadata properties Digital Source type (trainedAlgorithmnicMedia) and Credit ("Made with Google AI").

On Thursday, Google announced that it will be extending its usage of AI content labelled using the IPTC Digital Source Type vocabulary.

We have previously shared that Google uses IPTC Photo Metadata to signal AI-generated and AI-edited media, for example labelling images edited with the Magic Eraser tool on Pixel phones.

In a blog post published on Friday, John Fisher, Engineering Director for Google Photos and Google One posted that "[n]ow we're taking it a step further, making this information visible alongside information like the file name, location and backup status in the Photos app."

This is based on IPTC's Digital Source Type vocabulary, which was updated a few weeks ago to include new terms such as "Multi-frame computational capture sampled from real life" and "Screen capture".

Google already surfaces Digital Source Type information in search results via the "About this image" feature.

Still taken from a demonstration of how AI-labelling information will look in Google Photos.

Also, the human-readable label for the term http://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/digitalsourcetype/trainedAlgorithmicMedia was clarified to be "Created using Generative AI" and similarly the label for the term http://cv.iptc.org/newscodes/digitalsourcetype/compositeWithTrainedAlgorithmicMedia was clarified to be "Edited with Generative AI." These terms are both used by Google.

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