Multiple point Android digital image authentication

Digital images have been accepted as evidence in courts of law for a long time. One mandatory aspect for the admission of photographic evidence is the need for authentication. A spontaneous scene is very likely to be photographed with a smartphone rather than a classical camera. Android powered devices count for around 80% of smartphones worldwide. There is a high probability that an image used as evidence has been captured with this type of device. Android uses JPEG format for storing captured images. JPEG header´s embedded information exhibits a wide variation across different models and manufacturers. By taking advantage of this variation, the authentication method described in this article employs a multiple point verification of both intrinsic and extrinsic properties of the analyzed image. The extrinsic properties are being obtained from a 185 entries database of Android powered devices. Authentication is performed straight-forward, allowing the authenticity decision to be made at different points in the process, without the need of a full analysis to be employed beforehand.