dpa Picture Alliance Selects IMATAG as Preferred Invisible Watermarking Technology

Frankfurt, Germany / Rennes, France — May 6, 2026 — dpa Picture Alliance, Germany’s leading picture agency and a subsidiary of Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa), today announced the selection of IMATAG as its preferred invisible watermarking technology. The agreement covers the embedding of imperceptible identifiers across dpa Picture Alliance’s image catalog to support licensing enforcement, monitor unauthorized usage, and reinforce content authenticity in an era of generative AI.

dpa Picture Alliance distributes more than 300 million photos, videos, graphics, and illustrations through a network of over 350 partner agencies worldwide, including exclusive providers such as AP Images. The integration of IMATAG’s technology will allow the agency to mark each image with a robust, invisible signature that survives common transformations — including resizing, cropping, format conversion, and re-encoding — enabling persistent tracking of editorial and commercial usage across the open web.

The deployment serves two strategic priorities for dpa Picture Alliance. The first is the protection of legal usage rights: IMATAG’s watermarking provides forensic-grade evidence linking every distributed image to its licensed origin, supporting the agency’s anti-piracy operations and the rights of its photographers and partner agencies. The second is content authenticity: invisible watermarks function as a foundational layer of provenance, complementing emerging open standards such as C2PA Content Credentials and providing a verifiable anchor that travels with the image even when embedded metadata is stripped or altered.

“Our role as a trusted source of visual information requires us to protect the rights of our photographers and to safeguard the integrity of the images we distribute,” said Andreas Genz, Managing Director at dpa Picture Alliance. “IMATAG’s technology gives us a discreet and durable way to follow our content across the open web and to assert authenticity in a media environment where the boundary between authentic and synthetic imagery has become increasingly difficult for audiences to identify.”

“dpa Picture Alliance has set a high bar for editorial integrity for decades, and we are proud to support that standard,” said Mathieu Desoubeaux, CEO of IMATAG. “Invisible watermarking is becoming core infrastructure for the visual economy. When one of Europe’s most respected agencies adopts it as a default layer of protection across its catalog, it sends a clear signal to the wider industry that image traceability and authenticity belong in every professional distribution workflow.”

Deployment begins immediately, with phased rollout across dpa Picture Alliance’s distribution channels.

About dpa Picture Alliance

dpa Picture Alliance, headquartered in Frankfurt am Main, is one of the leading picture agencies in Germany and worldwide, specializing in image production, documentation, and marketing. A wholly-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa), the agency offers access to more than 300 million photos, videos, graphics, and illustrations through a network of over 350 partner agencies. Coverage spans news, politics, sports, entertainment, art, history, nature, travel, and lifestyle, complemented by an archive of more than ten million images documenting over a century of world events. Learn more at picture-alliance.com.

About IMATAG

IMATAG is a leading provider of invisible watermarking technology for the protection, traceability, and authentication of visual content. Headquartered in Rennes, France, IMATAG serves news agencies, stock libraries, brands, and enterprises worldwide. Its technology is used to monitor image usage, detect content leaks, and anchor authenticity in alignment with industry standards, including C2PA. Learn more at imatag.com.

Media Contacts

dpa Picture Alliance
Andreas Genz, Managing Director
Genz.Andreas@picture-alliance.com

IMATAG
Mathieu Desoubeaux, CEO
mathieu@imatag.com

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