Verification & Content Credentials
How The Block knows your photograph was made by a camera — and how that proof travels with it afterwards.
1. What happens when you upload
Every image is checked on our servers, not in your browser, where a check could be faked. It passes through layered validation: the image itself, then its EXIF — the technical record your camera writes into each file — then maker-specific metadata, then consistency and tamper checks, then the device blocklist. Only work that clears every layer publishes.
2. What bounces
Smartphones, action cameras (GoPro), and drones (DJI) are rejected — unless the metadata proves a professional sensor behind them. If anything in the check errors out, the image is rejected, not waved through.
3. SOOC
SOOC — straight out of camera — means the JPEG exactly as the camera made it, with no edits. It’s shown as a badge where it applies; it’s informational and doesn’t affect whether an image can publish.
4. If your camera is wrongly rejected
Edge cases happen — an unusual body, stripped metadata, a new release we haven’t listed. Tell us and we’ll review it; genuine cameras get added to the allowlist.
5. Content Credentials (C2PA)
If a photograph arrives already signed, The Block keeps that signature intact. If it doesn’t, Professional stories can be signed at publish (an explicit opt-in on the Publish step, or later from the story page) — a cryptographic, tamper-evident record built on the open C2PA standard the camera industry is adopting. Read the full mechanism at Content Credentials.
6. Honest limits
We verify camera-origin metadata and content credentials — strong, checkable evidence a real camera made the image, not a claim that any file is impossible to forge. The full detail, including the honest limits, is on The Gatekeeper.