covert-watermarks · nist-2024-ai-100-4

Digital watermarks that are not zero-bit—i.e., that have some capacity to carry additional data—could leak sensitive information, especially if a tool that applies the watermark embeds or reveals information about the tool’s user without that user’s knowledge. Covert watermarks raise particularly salient concerns: unlike metadata, which is often stripped when content is disseminated, covert watermarks are designed to be persistent, and unlike overt watermarks, their presence is not necessarily apparent to users.