FAQ
Q: What is the SureMark Digital Identity Service?
A: SureMark(tm) Digital is an online service company that allows high-visibility individuals to establish and protect their digital identity.
Q: How does the SureMark Digital Identity Service Work?
A: SureMark Digital verifies your identity in an online setting.
After paying a $10 processing fee, you will receive a provisional SureMark ID for yourself and two personal references. You must then post your provisional SureMark ID to one of your active and widely-followed social media accounts to demonstrate your control of that account. Your references similarly must demonstrate control of their accounts.
A SureMark moderator will conduct online interviews between you and each of your references. These short, four-to-five minute interviews further establish who you are and the relationship between the two of you. (Sample interviews are found here.)
SureMark Digital enables you to authorize your content.
After a review, SureMark issues you a credential, which allows you to authorize official digital content. You can then attach your credentialed signature to any audio, video, image or text files that you create.
Followers may now validate the source.
Thereafter, anyone on the internet can easily and freely validate whether your files have been approved by you. They do this by downloading an extension to their browser. Once installed, this extension checks that any credentialed content is authorized by you. The more content you authorize, the more your followers come to expect only authorized content from you. This both decreases the likelihood that deepfakes will be attempted, and the influence
Q: How does SureMark Digital differ from other software and services to detect or prevent AI deepfakes?
A: Many systems are currently available to address AI deepfakes. Others are in various stages of development. Broadly speaking, there are two types: those that use AI to detect AI deepfakes and those that seek to establish a history of changes made from inception on digital content.
We respect these many efforts and, wherever possible, will be working in cooperation with them.
SureMark's Digital Identity Service accomplishes something different, though related. It allows vetted, verified individuals to mark or authorize their content in such a way that interested viewers can easily and freely validate whether a particular piece of digital content was, in fact, created by the registered individual, no matter where it appears on the internet. The question addressed is not whether the content is real or fake, but whether a given verified individual is the content creator.
Q: Who pays for SureMark Digital's services?
A: Successful applicants for a SureMark Digital ID pay a one-time fee for five years of coverage in order to authorize the content they create. It is free and simple for any followers who have installed the extension to validate the digital content.
Q: Who should apply for a SureMark ID?
A: SureMark Digital focuses on high-visibility individuals, such as government officials, candidates for public office, journalists, and others with large social media followings. In other words, those most likely to be the subject of a deepfake or other attempts to profit off of misrepresenting or misappropriating someone’s digital identity. Currently, application for a SureMark ID is by invitation only. Over time, the application process will be opened to an increasingly wider range of individuals. If you wish to be considered for registration, you may be added to a waitlist by choosing the Application Form pull-down menu item under the Apply tab at suremark.digital.
Q: Where can I find out more about the technical details underlying verification, authorization, and validation processes?
A: A whitepaper is forthcoming.