A recent rumor from a Japanese news website has stated that the Sony Xperia 1 VI and 5 VI will see a ‘world-first’ feature. The website has a history of being fairly accurate when it comes to reporting on Sony products. They claim that Sony is going to add a digital signature to images to tell if the content has been tampered with.
Sony is well known for trying new things with each release of their Xperia model. For instance, the Xperia 1V has a dual-layer transistor pixel-stacked CMOS image sensor. It appears like the upcoming 1 VI and 5 VI may be no different. This coincides with Sony’s recent announcement that certain DSLR models will see a similar feature added via a software update. There is, however, no update on if the feature will make an appearance on other Xperia phones.
We don’t have exact details of how this system will work at the moment. However, a recent Sony press release about an in-camera digital signature chip works may hold the answer. The chip will add a digital signature to a photo as soon as it's taken. This will make it possible to prove that photos were taken with a camera. This signature also allows people to see where the image has been tampered with. Sony claims that this will allow for more transparency and reliability from news sites.
The question is how useful this addition will be to the average user. The addition of digital signatures may be more relevant in corporate and news settings. There is also no mention of how it will work with apps. If the signature is checkable on Instagram it may be a big change, especially to filtered images. We will know more about how the signatures are going to work when the next generation of Xperia phones is released. The Sony Xperia 1 VI is expected to debut early in 2024.
