Media Forensics Integrity Analytics

Media Forensics (MediFor)


Consumer-grade imaging sensors have become ubiquitous in the past decade. Images and videos, collected from such sensors are used by many entities for public and private communications, including publicity, advocacy, disinformation, and deception. The US Department of Defense (DoD) would like to be able to extract knowledge from and understand this imagery and its provenance. Many images and videos are modified and/or manipulated prior to publication/dissemination. The goal of this research is to develop a set of forensics tools to determine the integrity, semantic consistency and evolutionary history of images and videos.

We have assembled a team of outstanding technical experts from seven universities, with complementary skills and background in computer vision and biometrics, machine learning, digital forensics, as well as signal processing and information theory. We investigating all areas of media integrity.


This work is supported by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as part of the Media Forensics (MediFor) Program.

Principal Investigators

Mauro Barni (Co-Principal Investigator), Full Professor and President of the degree course in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering, University of Siena

Paolo Bestagini (Co-Principal Investigator), Assistant Professor at the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano

Kevin W. Bowyer (Co-Principal Investigator), Schubmehl-Prein Professor and Chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Notre Dame

Edward J. Delp (Principal Investigator), The Charles William Harrison Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University

Patrick J. Flynn (Co-Principal Investigator), Duda Family Professor of Engineering and Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and Concurrent Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of Notre Dame

C.-C. Jay Kuo (Co-Principal Investigator), Dean's Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California

Nasir Memon (Co-Principal Investigator), Professor and Department Head of Computer Science and Engineering, New York University

Anderson Rocha (Co-Principal Investigator), Professor at the Institute of Computing, University of Campinas, Brazil

Walter J. Scheirer (Co-Principal Investigator), Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Notre Dame

Stefano Tubaro (Co-Principal Investigator), Full Professor and Coordinator of the Telecommunications Section of the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano

This material is based on research sponsored by DARPA and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) under agreement number FA8750-16-2-0173. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Governmental purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation thereon. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of DARPA and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) or the U.S. Government.