Efficient self-embedding data hiding for image integrity verification with pixel-wise recovery capability

Due to the powerful image editing tools, image integrity protection is becoming important, for instance, in a court of law, news reports, insurance claims or telemedicine. Digital image watermarking is a technique for detecting, localizing and recovering of tampered image but capability and accuracy of performance by the existing methods are still issues especially when tampering rate is relatively high. This paper proposes a novel blind fragile watermarking mechanism for effective image authentication and recovery. In the proposed scheme, not only the probability of detection and localization of tampering is increased because of embedding appropriate authentication code in the proper position but also there is an efficient post-processing of recovery in a way that any pixel has treated differently leading to higher quality of recovered image. Furthermore, embedding more fragile authentication code with a smaller number of bits can help to provide a second opportunity for content recovery while the quality of watermarked image is preserved. Thus, better results have been achieved in terms of accuracy of detection and the quality of recovered image after higher tampering rate compared with some of the state-of-the-art schemes.