Information embedding method and apparatus

摘要

Supplementary information related to original data is embedded in the original data without being lost or altered and without degrading the quality of the original data. A photographing condition regarding photographing of the original image data is generated as the supplementary information by supplementary information generating unit and stored on a network in a supplementary information database. Storage management information such as a URL address of where the supplementary information is stored is generated by storage management information generating unit and embedded the original image data by using deep layer encryption. The original image data in which the storage management information has been embedded are recorded in a recording medium. Since the storage management information has a smaller amount of data than the supplementary information, quality of the original data is not degraded even when the storage management information is embedded in the original image data.