Look up a file, digest or soft binding id
Drop a file, or paste a digest, a C2PA manifest digest, or a soft binding id from a watermark decoder. The answer says whether any publisher has put it on the record. Your file never leaves this device: the browser hashes it and sends only the SHA-256.
The registry does not detect watermarks. A watermark decoder or fingerprint tool (any algorithm on the C2PA soft binding list) reads the id from the file; the registry resolves that id to the records publishers signed.
What you might see
The four result states. These describe the shapes, not real records.
On the record
A publisher signed and registered a record for these exact bytes or this manifest. The answer names the publisher, the log position and the signing key, and links the permanent page.
On the record, sealed
A sealed record is never deleted. Its body is withheld, but the fact that it was registered, by whom and when stays public.
No publisher has registered this value
No publisher on this registry has registered this value. That does not mean a person made the content. A resized or re-encoded copy has a different content hash; try the C2PA manifest digest or a soft binding id if the file has one.
The manifest was stripped, the watermark was not
A screenshot or re-upload strips C2PA metadata. If the generator also embedded a watermark and registered its id here, a lookup by that id still finds the original record.
A shared lookup providers can point to
The EU's final Code of Practice on marking and labelling AI-generated content asks providers for at least two layers of marking and for detection tools that third parties can use. California's SB 942 asks covered providers to offer a free AI detection tool. A provider that registers its outputs here (asset digest, C2PA manifest digest, and the soft binding id of its watermark) can point people to this page as a free, public lookup. Whether that meets either rule is for the provider and its counsel to decide; the registry claims compliance for no one.
The registry does not decide whether content is AI-made. It reports what publishers registered and signed. Reading is free and anonymous, and no reader identifier is stored.
The same lookup as data
The resolution API follows C2PA 2.4 (OpenAPI 2.3.0); the algorithm list is pinned (supported algorithms). Publishers fill the record's c2pa block with @aisourceoftruth/sdk/c2pa, which reads the manifest on their own machine. See the guide for providers.