A camera doesn’t lie… right? I saw a video today of some fascinating technology being developed at the University of Washington – close to where I live in Seattle – which takes video footage and seamlessly combines it with photographs to selectively increase the resolution, improve the lighting balance, or do a slew of other changes to the video. It’s called the “Spacetime Fusion Technique”, and while amazing (both the technology and the name they gave it), it also made me think about what will constitute authentic videos in the future.

As you can see, the technology is very impressive, and I can see countless applications for it in television, movies, and more. But on the other hand, video footage is one of the forms of evidence (used in courts, for example) that is difficult, but not impossible, to forge. The introduction of this technology into the mass market could have large implications on how these sorts of videos are treated, much like how Photoshop lets you modify a photo to change a detail, move an object, or even erase a person.

Imagine if a security camera caught a criminal during a robbery, but the recording was modified to erase that person and insert another before being submitted as evidence to the court.  It’s not as impossible as it may have once been.

Here’s another example: a travel video for tourists is filmed for a beach resort, then is selectively enhanced to show buildings in better condition, a less crowded shoreline, and more palm trees than there actually are. Is this false advertising? Is it wrong?

It already happens all the time in photographs, so what makes this any different? Our society is already used to the idea that photographs are often enhanced to improve color balance, remove blemishes, and so forth. But video is something else entirely. When somebody sees a video on the nightly news, they trust their eyes that what they see actually happened. But this could be changing soon, especially if this finds its way into post-production software like After Effects. And then, the camera will have to join the cake as part of things that are full of nothing but lies.