Disclaimer & Technical Limits

Last updated: October 2026. Important information on what Clean does, what it cannot do, and your legal disclosure obligations.

1. Scope: File Metadata Only

Clean operates strictly on file metadata headers (JPEG segments, PNG ancillary chunks, and WebP headers). It removes or edits container data such as EXIF camera information, GPS location tags, IPTC photo records, XMP packets, and C2PA Content Credentials manifests.

2. What This Tool CANNOT Do

Pixel Watermarks: Clean never touches compressed image pixels. It does not alter or defeat invisible pixel-frequency watermarks such as Google DeepMind SynthID. Platforms scanning image pixels directly will continue to detect these watermarks.
Visible Logos and Watermarks: Clean does not erase visible copyright watermarks, artist signatures, or text overlays from the picture.
Adversarial Noise: Clean does not add artificial noise to deceive machine learning image classifiers.

3. Legal Disclosure Obligations (EU AI Act and Platform Rules)

Under regulations such as Article 50 of the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act (EU AI Act) and terms of service across platforms like Meta, TikTok, and YouTube, publishers are required to disclose artificially generated media.

Clean does not provide legal advice. Stripping metadata headers does not exempt you from statutory or platform disclosure requirements. If your photo was generated with AI tools, you remain responsible for complying with required disclosures.

4. Permitted Media

You must only use Clean on photographs and images that you own or for which you have explicit permission to inspect and modify.