Provenance Verification of AI-Generated Images via a Perceptual Hash Registry Anchored on Blockchain

TL;DR

This paper introduces a blockchain-based system for verifying the provenance of AI-generated images using perceptual hashes stored on a hybrid blockchain, enabling scalable and tamper-resistant content authenticity verification.

Contribution

It presents a novel hybrid blockchain framework utilizing perceptual hashing and efficient search structures for scalable provenance verification of AI-generated images.

Findings

Effective registration of perceptual hashes on blockchain for image provenance

Efficient similarity search over large image registries

Tamper-resistant storage ensuring content authenticity

Abstract

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence has made the generation of synthetic images widely accessible, increasing concerns related to misinformation, digital forgery, and content authenticity on large-scale online platforms. This paper proposes a blockchain-backed framework for verifying AI-generated images through a registry-based provenance mechanism. Each AI-generated image is assigned a digital fingerprint that preserves similarity using perceptual hashing and is registered at creation time by participating generation platforms. The hashes are stored on a hybrid on-chain/off-chain public blockchain using a Merkle Patricia Trie for tamper-resistant storage (on-chain) and a Burkhard-Keller tree (off-chain) to enable efficient similarity search over large image registries. Verification is performed when images are re-uploaded to digital platforms such as social media services, enabling identification of previously registered AI-generated images even after benign transformations or partial modifications. The proposed system does not aim to universally detect all synthetic images, but instead focuses on verifying the provenance of AI-generated content that has been registered at creation time. By design, this approach complements existing watermarking and learning-based detection methods, providing a platform-agnostic, tamper-proof mechanism for scalable content provenance and authenticity verification at the point of large-scale online distribution.