Bringing Back Trust on the Internet: Authenticity, Content Credentials, and Digital Collections

Digital repositories face an approaching crisis: digital objects increasingly circulate without institutional context, while rapid advances in generative AI make it difficult for users to distinguish authentic content from altered or fabricated material. Approaches that attempt to detect AI-generated content are unreliable and will soon be obsolete. Repositories must prepare for the shift from users asking "how can we tell this is fake?" to "how can we tell this is real?" This presentation describes Northwestern University Libraries' exploration of Content Credentials, an emerging content authenticity infrastructure based on the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity standards, as a proactive strategy for asserting authenticity and provenance. Over the past year, we have investigated how Content Credentials might be integrated into a digitization and repository workflow. We share our rationale for pursuing this approach and discuss why early adoption may benefit cultural heritage institutions. Attendees will gain practical insights into how Content Credentials could be adapted to their own repository environments and how early experimentation can help cultural heritage institutions maintain trust in an uncertain digital future.