ETH Zurich unveils chip that signs data at capture to fight deepfakes
Researchers at ETH Zurich announced Tuesday a new sensor chip technology designed to combat the growing threat of deepfakes by cryptographically signing images, videos, and audio at the exact moment they are captured. The accompanying paper was published in Nature Electronics on March 24, 2026.ethz+1
The chip generates a unique digital signature within the sensor hardware itself, creating a verifiable link between the recorded data and the physical device that produced it. This signature proves where the data originated, when it was captured, and whether it has been altered.LinkedInEditors+1
How It Works
Unlike conventional security systems that protect data only after it has been recorded, the ETH Zurich chip embeds cryptographic functions directly into the sensing process. As data is captured, the chip generates a hash — a unique digital fingerprint — and encrypts it using a secure key stored within the hardware.iob
"If data is signed the moment it is captured, any later manipulation leaves traces," said Fernando Cardes, a research associate at ETH Zurich's Professorship of Biosystems Engineering who co-developed the technology. "To manipulate the data, the chip would have to be physically attacked, requiring a massive technological effort so that the mass generation of manipulated content for social media platforms would be practically impossible."ethz
The signatures can be stored by camera manufacturers in a publicly accessible, immutable ledger such as a blockchain, enabling anyone to verify authenticity at any time.LinkedInEditors+1
From Lab Project to Patent Application
The idea originated in 2017 as a side project at the Bio Engineering Laboratory at ETH Zurich, where researchers were building sensitive sensors to measure electrical signals from living cells. The interdisciplinary team recognized early the threat that manipulated media would pose and began incorporating cryptographic functions into their sensor designs.ethz
"Trust in digital content is eroding. We wanted to create a technology that gives people a way to verify whether something is genuine," said Felix Franke, who co-developed the chip at ETH Zurich and is now a professor at the University of Basel.LinkedInEditors+1
The chip described in the paper is a working prototype demonstrating technical feasibility. The researchers have filed a patent application and are exploring how to reduce costs for camera and sensor manufacturers interested in integrating the technology. In principle, it can be incorporated into any type of sensor or camera, and social media platforms could eventually use it to automatically verify uploaded content.bluewin+1
The research was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the State Secretariat for Education, Research, and Innovation through the SwissChips initiative.ethz
