Capture from Numbers Protocol is an app that can make stealing copyrighted images impossible. Or at least let you prove they were stolen.

If you’re a photographer, how do you prove an image is yours? It’s possible to register the copyright of the image, but that can be impractical. Instead, Capture uses blockchain technology to identify your images, no matter how far and wide they’re shared. Could this stop copyright theft?

“At Numbers, our goal has always been to create tools that help users preserve the integrity of photos and potentially change the way people consume information on news and social media platforms,” Ethan Wu, community manager at Numbers, told Lifewire via direct message.

A blockchain is a type of digital authentication chain. It’s what makes digital currencies like Bitcoin possible. If we take a photo as an example, it works like this: every time a photo is copied (for example, when you share it), this “transaction” is recorded as a “block.” The new block also contains the encrypted identity of the previous block. These link all the way back to the original, in a chain. Hence the name.