‹ BackHN Continuity

Thread

Apple Reference Image: A New Approach for Verified Photography

539 points · 352 comments · imwally

  1. tgsovlerkhgsel · · focus · HN ↗
    This is really clever from Apple. The journalist use case is just the PR story. This will be really useful for identity verification and insurance apps, and has the potential to shift from "you need a smartphone to be able to live normally" to "you need an iPhone to be able to live normally".

    There are already plenty of insurances that require you to submit claims through a smartphone app that tries to essentially do this by capturing sensor metadata etc. - those don't need to be nation-state resilient, just Joe the Crackhead Insurance Scammer resilient, so this works. Likewise, more and more things online require identity verification (either officially or disguised as age verification).

    Edit: And while "a nation state actor can spoof this" is a problem for the journalism use case, the insurance/ID verification use cases are perfectly fine with anything that raises the bar but could be bypassed with enough effort. Also, the journalism use case suffers from the same fundamental issue all of these use cases suffer from: People will "verify" the picture by looking at the repost of a screenshot of the verification UI, not by verifying the original themselves.

    1. bawolff · · focus · HN ↗
      The main way we combat insurance fraud is by throwing people in jail who do it. I dont think AI faked photos is a major cause of fraud.
      1. tempay · · focus · HN ↗
        At least in the UK this seems to be a growing problem and jail isn&#x27;t a scalable solution. See for example: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;articles&#x2F;cm2rr9pg4jzo" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;articles&#x2F;cm2rr9pg4jzo
        1. gambiting · · focus · HN ↗
          Like a lot of things in the UK, the problem isn&#x27;t the harshness of the law, it&#x27;s the lack of prosecution. It doesn&#x27;t matter what the punishment is when criminals know that the crime is extremely unlikely to be investigated or make it to trial.
          1. RobotToaster · · focus · HN ↗
            &gt; it&#x27;s the lack of prosecution.

            The UK allows private prosecution, if it was a real problem the insurance companies would be using it, instead of attempting to make the state pay for it.

            1. tempay · · focus · HN ↗
              You still need to be able to realise something is fraudulent and pursuing prosecution has a significant cost to the insurer that is likely to be a net-loss financially. Not to mention the reputational risk of the public believing you prosecuted someone wrongly.
Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.