The digital world is a visual world. Camera-enabled smartphones are now part of many people’s inventory and we use them to snap interesting things and share with friends – there are more than 350 million photos posted on social media alone every day.
But the digital world has a trust problem – it gets harder to tell if the shot you’re seeing is true to life or is a product of crafty photo editing. And this isn’t just a problem for casual social media snaps – it goes all the way to reputed news sites, photography contests and journalist essays. So how to tell which photos are true? Our new mobile app will provide the answer.
Proofy is a free app for iOS and Android smartphones that verifies user’s photos and proves the exact time when a picture was taken. We decided to create this application as a counterpoint to the perpetual uncertainty we face when seeing a curious photo online and wondering if it’s real. It now turns out that the real-life applications of Proofy can vary greatly depending on your needs – documenting an important event or accident, bragging about meeting a celebrity, showing that a task was completed on time. Proofy can play an important role in citizen journalism when documenting public events, as well as when you’re presenting proofs to insurance companies.
Verifying a picture with Proofy is easy – users just need to install the app, snap a picture with it and wait a few seconds for the photo to pass the verification process. Proofy verifies the photos the moment they’re created, as it is most reliable to check the shot right at the source. The app algorithm stores the photo certificate and when the user decides to share their picture, the shot is checked against the original information. If all is fine, the shot is uploaded to the website getproofy.com with a unique URL for future reference. In this way the photo can easily be viewed by anyone the author decides to share it with.
Proofy is already available on the Apple AppStore and Google Play and is free to use. Check it out and tell us what you think!