Originator Profile presented by Japan at OECD

Originator Profile (OP), a technology developed in Japan to counter fake information generated by artificial intelligence, has been presented by the government for the first time at an international conference.

A video about OP was presented along with a speech by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) meeting on May 2.

With the new technology, which shows the origin of information online, the government hopes to take the lead globally in tackling AI risk.

OP makes online data more trustworthy by embedding a third-party electronic identifier in articles and advertisements. These identifiers show that the source is a certified company or institution, helping users be more cautious about information not verified by OP.

The Originator Profile Collaborative Innovation Partnership, formed by media and telecommunications companies, aims to put the OP technology to use by 2025.

Many technologies are being developed both in Japan and overseas to address risks posed by AI, such as disinformation and copyright infringement. A common example is digital watermarking, in which data is embedded into an image to indicate the piece is AI generated. This is meant to help users verify whether the image is real and credible.

Meta Platforms Inc. announced in February that it would label images users post on its social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram when they are found to be fakes generated by AI. And in March, Google LLC announced it had developed a technology that can detect synthetic audio created by its generative AI with 98.6% accuracy.

The C2PA, an industry group formed by Microsoft Corp., Adobe Inc. and other companies, is working on establishing an international standard for embedding information such as the creator, the date and time of creation, and the editing process into images and videos found online.

OP, for its part, is an internationally advanced technology in its ability to protect reliable and proper information providers.

The Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry plans to test out the technology in disaster-stricken areas this fiscal year, after disinformation and misinformation were spread on social media following the Noto Peninsula Earthquake.

Through testing, the government intends to confirm the effectiveness of OP and promote its adoption, with an eye to making it an international standard.