Verified photos
Photos taken with the Covram Field App can be checked to show that they came from a genuine device and haven't been changed since they were taken. When a photo has been checked, the Covram Dashboard shows a badge on it: Verified or Unable to verify.
This is useful when you need to show other people, such as a funder or a regulator, that your monitoring photos are a trustworthy record.
What Covram checks
When you take a photo in the Covram Field App, your device signs a record of it. The record includes a fingerprint of the photo, the time it was taken, where it was taken and who took it. The signature is made with a key that is locked inside the device's secure hardware and can't be copied off the device.
After the photo uploads, Covram checks two things:
- The device is genuine. The device's secure hardware confirms that the signing key is real and protected. On an Android device this confirmation is backed by Google, and on an Apple device it is backed by Apple.
- The photo hasn't been altered. Covram compares the uploaded photo with the signed record. If the photo had been changed in any way, they wouldn't match.
If both checks pass, the photo shows Verified.
What it doesn't prove
Verification shows that a photo was taken in the Covram Field App on a genuine device, and that it hasn't been changed since. It doesn't show what the camera was pointed at, and it can't tell whether a scene was staged. Treat it as strong evidence about the photo itself, not about its subject.
Which photos are checked
Only photos taken with the camera in the Covram Field App on an Android or Apple device are checked. These photos don't get a verification badge:
- Photos chosen from a device's gallery, or imported in the Covram Dashboard. These show a
Historicbadge instead. - Photos taken or chosen in a browser.
- Photos taken before photo signing was added to the Covram Field App.
A photo with no badge hasn't been checked. That doesn't mean there is a problem with it.
When the badge appears
You don't need to do anything. Covram checks a photo automatically after it has uploaded, so a photo taken without a connection is checked once it syncs. Until then it has no badge.