Digital artworks also present challenges in terms of validating authenticity. Michael Seadle argues that, traditionally, authenticity judgments in digital preservation have been strongly linked to integrity checks.  On current authentication practices, Seadle notes, “A digital work that exists measurably unchanged in multiple independent copies possesses a form of integrity that can support its claim to authenticity. A digital object whose integrity is lost through changes could theoretically still be authentic . . . but its authenticity becomes harder to prove” (548). According to this view, authenticity and integrity must be subject to repeat authenticity and integrity checks to be deemed trustworthy. Digital authentication procedures verify object provenance and integrity, but often conflict with digital art’s variable nature. As Adam points out, “Questions of object corruption over time are ultimately questions of sustained integrity, but in so much a corrupted digital object can significantly differ from that which it purports to be, compromised integrity can result in compromised integrity” (599). Best practices continue to associate integrity with authenticity.

Currently, digital preservationists employ checksum and hash algorithms to detect whether a file has changed, lost bits, or become corrupt. The binary nature of this approach is problematic (Seadle 598). It turns the validation process into a yes or no question: digital artwork files either have integrity or they do not. Digital art objects may potentially change over time—through reformatting or partial corruption—but retain their essential qualities. InterPARES echoes this position in a report, claiming an electronic record is authentic if it retains “the message that it is meant to communicate in order to achieve its purpose,” including form and content (20). In this view, digital artwork is authentic if it conveys its intended message, regardless of integrity. To this end, Seadle calls for a more nuanced understanding of authenticity and integrity in digital preservation, including tools to detect “shades of meaning” and better distinguish between partially corrupt and inauthentic digital objects. As shown below, scholars have begun to offer new paradigms for understanding the nuances of authenticity in digital art.