A freelance illustrator finishes a cover painting on her tablet and sends it to a client. A week later the client's art director writes back: a reviewer flagged the image as machine-made, and he needs her to prove my art is not AI generated before it can run. She has a folder of layered files, some sketches and a clear conscience. None of that is something he can check.
Here is the direct answer. No file can prove, on its own, that a picture was made without AI, and no record can prove human authorship by itself. What you can do is hand over dated, identity-linked evidence: the exact file, a date fixed by a third party, the verified person who sealed it and the label that person chose. It will not end every argument. It gives the other side something firm to weigh instead of your word alone.
The question you are really being asked
When someone says "prove it is not AI", they usually mean three smaller things: is this the file you made, when did it exist, and who stands behind it. Those can be answered with evidence. The large question, whether a machine touched any pixel, cannot be answered by any stamp. Knowing which question you can answer is half the defence, and it stops you promising more than a record can deliver.
A fingerprint of the exact file
When you seal a work, the platform computes a cryptographic hash of it, a fingerprint of that exact file at that moment. The how it works page puts it plainly: change the file by a single byte and the hash changes. So the record is tied to one version, not to "my cover painting" in general. A flattened export, a cropped version and the layered master each have their own fingerprint, and you choose which ones to seal.
A date that someone else fixed
The date inside an image file is written by your own machine, and a clock can be set to any day. A sealed work carries a timestamp issued through a qualified trust service provider. Under Article 41(2) of the eIDAS Regulation, a qualified electronic time stamp enjoys the presumption of the accuracy of the date and time it indicates and the integrity of the data bound to it. That is the whole scope: date, time and integrity of the file. It does not say who drew the picture.
A person, checked against a passport
A timestamp shows that a file existed. It does not show who made it. The identity check closes part of that gap: you scan a QR code and verify with your passport in an app, and the record is tied to that verified person. The check is provided by Swisscom Trust Services. When the art director asks who is behind the file, the answer is a named, checked individual, not an anonymous account.
A label you chose, with your name behind it
Each file can carry one declaration from six: AI FREE, AI ASSISTED, AI MODIFIED, AI GENERATED, HUMAN AUTHORED or HUMAN APPROVED. Once chosen it is locked, and the new certificate carries it. Under the Content Label Terms v1.2, the two human labels are identity-bound: HUMAN AUTHORED goes with AI FREE, and HUMAN APPROVED is for content reviewed and approved by an identified person other than the author. A label is a declaration, not a detector. Its value is that it is on the record, dated, and linked to you.
A certificate anyone can check
The sealed work comes with a public verification link that works without an account, so a client, an agency or a platform can confirm the hash and the timestamp themselves. The validator also checks signatures on a signed PDF with no login. Nobody has to take your word, and nobody has to phone you to confirm it.
What this does not prove
Say these limits out loud before the other side does. The record does not prove the work was made without AI. It does not prove human authorship on its own. It does not show the file was unedited before you sealed it, only that this exact file existed at that time. The seal covers a fingerprint, so keep the original file yourself. Process files help: if you seal the sketch, the layered working file and the final export as you go, you hold a dated sequence rather than one end point. Where AI rules for published images apply, they ask for disclosure; Article 50 of the EU AI Act requires providers to mark AI-generated image output in a machine-readable format and deployers to disclose deep fakes. A dated label from you is a record of what you declared, nothing more.
Back to the cover painting
If our illustrator had sealed her layered file when she finished, she could have answered the art director the same afternoon: here is the exact file, here is the date a third party fixed, here is my verified identity, here is the label I chose, and here is a link to check all of it. He might still ask for more. But he would be weighing evidence, not a promise. Industry estimates suggest that disputes over authorship are costly and slow once they reach lawyers, and the record is cheapest to make before anyone asks.
Make the record before the question arrives: seal your next finished work on Swiss Trust Layer, then read how the certificate is built on how it works.
