iOS 27 code shows Apple building a way to prove a photo is not AI

Buried in the code of Apple’s iOS 27 beta 5 is a reference to something called Apple Reference Image. The system could let iPhone owners prove that a photo came from their phone’s camera, not an AI image generator.

The references surfaced on August 10; however, this feature is turned off in the current beta.

Apple certifies real photos

The tech industry has been tagging synthetic content for two years. Google’s SynthID embeds invisible watermarks in AI-generated pictures. OpenAI has also adopted the same technology for its AI-generated pictures. Meta is adding AI tags to Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

Apple also watermarks images it generates, including output from Image Playground. The Reference Image feature links a photo back to the physical camera sensor that took it. That provides proof that a real lens made the frame.

The feature is disabled by default. A user would go to Settings, Camera, and Reference Image and toggle on Reference Mode. Authentication only works for shots taken in a dedicated Reference Mode in the Camera app. Pictures taken in the usual way have no provenance data.

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