II
118THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION S. 2222
To require the Director of the Defense Media Activity to establish a course
of education on digital content provenance and to carry out a pilot
program on implementing digital content provenance standards, and for
other purposes.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
JULY10, 2023
Mr. P
ETERSintroduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred
to the Committee on Armed Services
A BILL
To require the Director of the Defense Media Activity to
establish a course of education on digital content prove-
nance and to carry out a pilot program on implementing
digital content provenance standards, and for other pur-
poses.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Digital Defense Con-4
tent Provenance Act of 2023’’. 5
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SEC. 2. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE DIGITAL CONTENT 1
PROVENANCE. 2
(a) B
RIEFING.— 3
(1) I
N GENERAL.—Not later than 90 days after 4
the date of the enactment of this Act, the Director 5
of the Defense Media Activity (DMA) shall provide 6
to the Committee on Armed Services of the Senate 7
and the Committee on Armed Services of the House 8
of Representatives a briefing on developing a course 9
of education at the Defense Information School 10
(DINFOS) to teach the practical concepts and skills 11
needed by Department of Defense public affairs, 12
audiovisual, visual information, and records manage-13
ment specialists. 14
(2) E
LEMENTS.—The briefing provided pursu-15
ant to paragraph (1) shall cover the following: 16
(A) The expertise and qualifications of the 17
Department personnel who will be responsible 18
for teaching the proposed course of education. 19
(B) The list of sources that will be con-20
sulted and used to develop the proposed cur-21
riculum for the course of education. 22
(C) A description of the industry open 23
technical standards under subsection (b)(1)(C). 24
(D) The status of the implementation of 25
the course of education. 26
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(b) COURSE OFEDUCATIONREQUIRED.— 1
(1) I
N GENERAL.—Not later than one year 2
after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Di-3
rector of the Defense Media Activity shall establish 4
a course of education at the Defense Information 5
School to teach the practical concepts and skills 6
needed by public affairs, audiovisual, visual informa-7
tion, and records management specialists to under-8
stand the following: 9
(A) Digital content provenance for applica-10
ble Department media content. 11
(B) The challenges posed to Department 12
missions and operations by a digital content 13
forgery. 14
(C) How existing industry open technical 15
standards may be used to authenticate the dig-16
ital content provenance of applicable Depart-17
ment media content. 18
(2) M
ATTERS COVERED.—The course of edu-19
cation established pursuant to paragraph (1) shall 20
cover the following: 21
(A) The challenges to Department mis-22
sions and operations posed by a digital content 23
forgery. 24
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(B) The development of industry open 1
technical standards for verifying the digital con-2
tent provenance of applicable Department 3
media content. 4
(C) Hands-on training techniques for cap-5
turing secure and authenticated digital content 6
for documenting and communicating Depart-7
ment themes and messages. 8
(D) Training for completing post-produc-9
tion tasks by using industry open technical 10
standards for digital content provenance and 11
transmitting applicable Department media con-12
tent in both operational and nonoperational en-13
vironments. 14
(E) Such other matters as the Director 15
considers appropriate. 16
(3) R
EPORT.—Not later than one year after the 17
date of the establishment of the course required in 18
paragraph (1), the Director shall provide the Com-19
mittee on Armed Services of the Senate and the 20
Committee on Armed Services of the House of Rep-21
resentatives a report on the following: 22
(A) The status of the development of a 23
curriculum to carry out the course of education 24
required by paragraph (1). 25
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(B) The implementation plan of the Direc-1
tor for such course of education, including the 2
following: 3
(i) The expertise and qualifications of 4
the Department personnel responsible for 5
teaching the course of education. 6
(ii) The list of sources consulted and 7
used to develop the curriculum for the 8
course of education. 9
(iii) A description of the industry open 10
technical standards under subsection 11
(b)(1)(C). 12
(iv) The status of the implementation 13
of the course of education. 14
(C) The resources available to the Director 15
to carry out this subsection and whether the 16
Director requires any additional resources to 17
carry out this subsection. 18
(c) P
ILOTPROGRAM ON IMPLEMENTING DIGITAL 19
C
ONTENTPROVENANCESTANDARDS.— 20
(1) P
ILOT PROGRAM REQUIRED .—Not later 21
than one year after the date of the enactment of this 22
Act, the Director shall commence a pilot program to 23
assess the feasibility and advisability of imple-24
menting industry open technical standards for dig-25
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ital content provenance for official Department pho-1
tographic and video visual documentation that is 2
publicly released by the Defense Visual Information 3
Distribution Service (DVIDS) and other distribution 4
platforms, systems, and services used by the Depart-5
ment. 6
(2) E
LEMENTS.—In carrying out the pilot pro-7
gram required by paragraph (1), the Director 8
shall— 9
(A) establish a process for using industry 10
open technical standards for verifying the dig-11
ital content provenance of applicable Depart-12
ment media content; 13
(B) apply technology solutions on photo-14
graphs and videos of the Department publicly 15
released after the date of the enactment of this 16
section, that comport with industry open tech-17
nical standard for digital content provenance; 18
(C) assess the feasibility and advisability of 19
applying an industry open technical standard 20
for digital content provenance on historical vis-21
ual information records of the Department 22
stored at the Defense Visual Information 23
Records Center; and 24
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(D) develop and apply measure of effec-1
tiveness for the execution of the pilot program. 2
(3) C
ONSULTATION.—In carrying out the pilot 3
program required by paragraph (1), the Director 4
may consult with federally funded research and de-5
velopment centers, private industry, academia, and 6
such others as the Director considers appropriate. 7
(4) T
ERMINATION.—The pilot program carried 8
out pursuant to paragraph (1) shall terminate on 9
January 1, 2027. 10
(5) R
EPORT.— 11
(A) I
N GENERAL.—Not later than January 12
1, 2026, the Director shall submit to the Com-13
mittee on Armed Services of the Senate and the 14
Committee on Armed Services of the House of 15
Representatives a report on the pilot program. 16
(B) C
ONTENTS.—The report submitted 17
pursuant to subparagraph (A) shall include the 18
following: 19
(i) The findings of the Director with 20
respect to the pilot program. 21
(ii) The names of all entities the Di-22
rector consulted with in carrying out the 23
pilot program as authorized under para-24
graph (3). 25
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(iii) Assessment of the effectiveness of 1
the pilot. 2
(iv) A recommendation as to whether 3
the pilot program should be made perma-4
nent. 5
(d) D
EFINITIONS.—In this section: 6
(1) The term ‘‘applicable Department media 7
content’’ means the media holdings generated, 8
stored, or controlled by the Defense Media Activity. 9
(2) The term ‘‘digital content forgery’’ means 10
the use of emerging technologies, including artificial 11
intelligence and machine learning techniques to fab-12
ricate or manipulate audio, visual, or text content 13
with the intent to mislead. 14
(3) The term ‘‘digital content provenance’’ 15
means the verifiable chronology of the origin and 16
history of a piece of digital content, such as an 17
image, video, audio recording, or electronic docu-18
ment. 19
Æ
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