The Grand Challenge on Multimedia Verification is an open competition where researchers and practitioners compete to verify the authenticity and context of multimedia content, addressing real- world misinformation challenges. Participants analyze provided images and videos, assess sources, detect manipulations, and submit a detailed verification report.
This 2026 version continues the work from the first initiative at ACM MM 2025 and the Grand Challenge on Detecting Cheapfakes, previously held at ACM MMSys 2021, ACM MM 2022, IEEE ICME 2023, and ACM ICMR 2024. There are no restrictions on methodology: solutions can be fully manual, fully automated, or a mix of OSINT, existing tools, and newly developed techniques.
The competition consists of three stages: Training, Validation, and Real-World Verification. Participants first explore 50 known cases to familiarize themselves with the tasks. In the Validation stage, they must analyze 10 new cases and pass evaluation to qualify for the Real-World Verification stage, where 10 live verification cases will test their methods on fresh, evolving misinformation challenges.
Recognition & Awards. We propose that up to 3 best teams that submit a scientific paper may present at ACM ICMR 2026, subject to peer review. Only paper-submitting teams are eligible for awards, but all participants’ scores will be officially recognized.
Disclaimer: Please be advised that the multimedia verification case may contain disturbing, sensitive, graphic, or adult content (18+), including scenes of violence or other potentially distressing material. Viewer discretion is strongly advised. Participation implies awareness and acceptance of exposure to such content.
March 2, 2026 – Registration Opens
March 2, 2026 – Training and Validation Data Released
March 30, 2026 – Registration Closes
March 30, 2026 – Submission Deadline for Results, Reports, and Papers
April 1, 2026 – Notification of Papers and Results (Accepted teams move to the final stage).
April 7 – 15, 2026 – Final Stage: Real-World Verification
April 20, 2026 – Final Results Announcement
April 25, 2026 – Camera-Ready Paper Submission Deadline
June 16 – 19, 2026 – Conference
Register your team and request access to the dataset: https://forms.gle/62M1DbVFJ16GUEhB8