This walks through how a newsroom could use photo checks. It's an illustration, not a customer story.
The situation
A source sends a photo from a scene you can't get to. It's newsworthy and it's on deadline. Publish it and you vouch for it. The question is whether the file supports what the source says about it.
How a check fits in
- Ask for the original file. Photos sent through messaging apps lose most of their record, and even an email attachment can arrive without its location: some phones remove it when you share (Samsung's Gallery has a Remove location data option), and uploading through a phone browser can strip it too. The most complete copy comes straight off the phone, for example over a USB cable, or from the source's cloud photo backup.
- Check the file. Upload it to snapWONDERS. Look at the device, the date and time zone, the location if recorded, and the software that last saved it.
- Check it against the claim. Does the date fit the event? Does the location fit the place? Does the device fit what the source says they used? (See it: we moved a photo's clock three hours, and its GPS time disagreed.)
- Check for generation and editing. Look at the authenticity and editing findings, and any provenance label from an AI tool.
- Protect the source. The same details that verify a photo can identify the person who took it. Before you publish, strip the metadata from the version you publish (see how to remove location and metadata) and check the stripped copy.
A worked example: the original and the WhatsApp copy
Say a source tells you: "I took this outside a church on La Trobe Street in Melbourne on the morning of 25 September, on my Samsung phone." We took the photo ourselves, then also sent it through WhatsApp, so we could check both the original and the copy a messaging app delivers.
The original backs the story up. The location points to La Trobe Street, beside the State Library:
It was taken at 9:52:54 am on 25 September 2026:
And it was taken on a Samsung Galaxy A56:
The original also grades Authenticity A, with high confidence: nothing suggests it was edited or re-saved.
The WhatsApp copy can't back up anything. It arrived smaller (1536 × 2048 instead of 3000 × 4000) and with no location, no date and no device:
Its Authenticity grade is B with low confidence, because there's so little left to check. Nothing in it contradicts the source's story, but nothing supports it either. That's why step 1 matters.
See it as a before and after: the same photo, before and after WhatsApp
What it can't do
A check can't confirm what the photo shows is true. It tells you whether the file's own record fits the source's story. Pair it with the usual steps: a second source, known landmarks, weather and shadows.
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