That's really interesting, but how many people submit pictures from recognized cameras in jpeg format with no processing whatsoever? And especially if the picture comes secondhand through social media or something.
I used to work inside the offices of the AP in NYC (not for the AP directly) and saw plenty of journalists with big cameras on in and out of the newsroom all the time. I can imagine it is quite a task to manage all of those photos, along with all of their meta data. It might be to add this little layer of verification in the middle to ensure that everything is authentic.