This would have plenty of limitations, but I wonder if it would be possible for digital cameras to sign their output so you could verify it was unedited.
I'm hoping for a future where you can at least sometimes trust that a news broadcast or cell phone video has documented actual reality. Not that cameras aim to document reality with 100% accuracy, but if every 10x10 grid of pixels had a checksum & a list of corrections made by hardware that is signed with a private key it could do some good.
Editors & broadcasters could sign their output too so that you'd be able to review a news 5 years later & be confident it hasn't changed. Badge-cams & Dashcams especially would benefit from being verifiable. It won't be long before the possibility of a deepfake provides reasonable doubt to a jury.
There is also a risk that if the fingerprint is unique enough it could identify the specific device & who recorded the video, but pixels presented as recorded and unedited by an iPhone 13 might be good enough. There's no reason why video from law enforcement bodycams shouldn't be signed & tied to specific hardware to be used in court.
