[Digital Today reporter Chi-gyu Hwang] Sucinct Labs has launched ZCAM, an iPhone app that leaves a cryptographic signature at the moment photos and videos are captured.

According to a recent report by The Block, ZCAM aims to counter the spread of AI-generated photos and videos. It signs content at the time it is captured to create a tamper-resistant record linked to the device that shot it. This allows users to independently verify whether the media was captured on a real device and not digitally altered or generated.

Sucinct Labs said it applied a different approach in ZCAM because commercial AI detectors can easily fail. Instead of post-hoc detection, it uses smartphone hardware to create a unique cryptographic signature. When a photo or video is taken on an iPhone, ZCAM generates a cryptographic hash based on the captured pixels.

Sucinct Labs cited research by the Deloitte Center for Financial Services and said fraud losses in the United States from generative AI could rise to $40 billion in 2027 from $12.3 billion in 2023.

There is an assessment that proving what is real is better than determining what is fake, but it may not be easy to get people to keep using a separate camera app. Sucinct Labs said companies and journalists can use ZCAM.

Sucinct Labs also operates zero-knowledge proof infrastructure. In 2024, it raised $55 million in funding led by Paradigm.

In August last year, it launched the Sucinct Prover Network mainnet and its PROVE token. The Sucinct Prover Network is an Ethereum-based decentralized marketplace in which applications submit requests for zero-knowledge proofs and independent provers verify them.