China: TC260 opened consultation on Guidelines on Identification Methods for AI-Generated Synthetic Image Content

On 24 June 2025, China’s National Cybersecurity Standardisation Technical Committee (TC260) opened a public consultation on the draft Cybersecurity Standard Practice Guide—Artificial Intelligence Generated Synthetic Content Identification Method: File Metadata Implicit Identification for Image Files until 6 July 2025. The consultation focuses on the draft technical guide, which is based on the mandatory national standard GB 45438-2025 Cybersecurity Technology—Identification Methods for AI-Generated Synthetic Content. The Guide outlines technical methods for embedding metadata identifiers in AI-generated or synthetic image content, specifying implementations for formats such as JPEG/JPG, HEIF, HEIC, TIFF, WebP, and PNG. It provides guidance for AI-generated content service providers and network information content disseminators, detailing metadata schemes based on EXIF standards and PNG chunk structures, with reference examples for multiple platforms and programming languages.