New research from the University of Waterloo's Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute demonstrates that any artificial intelligence (AI) image watermark can be removed, without the attacker needing to know the design of the watermark, or even whether an image is watermarked to begin with.
There are already plans for metadata signing. I think some high end Canon cameras might do it already. It basically allows proof (via public private key of the hash) that a particular camera took that photo.
The idea is that you can create a chain of custody with an image. Each edit requires a new signature, with each party responsible for verifying the previous chain, to protect their own reputation.
It’s far from perfect, but will help a lot with things like legal cases.