“Signed but untrusted” means that a file contains C2PA data and the cryptographic signature may be valid, but the signing certificate is not recognized as publicly trusted by the validator’s trust policy.
This status is common during development, testing, demos, private pilots or workflows that use local certificates. See Test certificate vs trusted certificate, the C2PA Trust List glossary entry and C2PA Certificate.
Why a valid signature may still be untrusted
A digital signature can prove that a manifest was signed with a certain private key and that the signed data has not been modified. But trust requires more than a mathematically valid signature.
A validator also needs to decide whether the certificate behind that signature is recognized, whether it chains to a trusted authority, and whether it matches the expected trust ecosystem.
This is why a file can be signed correctly but still be marked as untrusted.
Common causes
A C2PA file may appear as signed but untrusted when:
- it was signed with a local test certificate;
- it was signed by a private internal certificate;
- the certificate does not chain to a recognized C2PA Trust List authority;
- the validator does not know the issuer;
- the trust policy used by the validator is different from the signer’s ecosystem.
Also see the product limitations for responsible interpretation of verification statuses.
Is signed but untrusted bad?
Not necessarily.
For development and demos, signed but untrusted can be expected. It shows that signing works, while also making clear that the certificate should not be treated as publicly trusted.
For public distribution, however, a production workflow should use a certificate chain recognized by the relevant trust ecosystem.
How ProvSeal shows this status
ProvSeal separates signature validity from public trust. This helps users avoid confusion between “the manifest was signed correctly” and “the signer is publicly trusted”.
This is especially useful when testing local identities, importing .p12 or .pfx signing material, or comparing sandbox and production workflows for Content Credentials.