How to Quickly Blur Faces in Photos
Just like turning off GPS on your phone or limiting the data you share with Google , people have a right to digital privacy, but built-in facial recognition algorithms on sites like Facebook or apps like Google Photos actively work against ours. digital autonomy.
While there are ways to control where and when your own face appears online – like turning off automatic facial recognition for Facebook photos, limiting what others can share and tag you , or even making your social media feeds private – there are cases you also need to protect the anonymity of others.
Remember to post pictures of strangers, especially protest photos. It’s best not to take photos like this at all, but if you do, consider using image editing tools to blur faces before posting (and remember to always wear a mask during protests to keep your face out of other people’s photos).
Here are a couple of free tools to get the job done quickly and easily.
ImageScrubber
It’s a free and open source program that blurs faces in images and even removes metadata from files that can be used to locate, camera, and even photographer an image if it’s not properly removed. ImageScrubber does all the work online too – there’s nothing to install. Here’s how to use it:
- Go to the ImageScrubber website .
- Click “Open Image” to upload the photo you want to edit.
- Use the brush tools to blur faces or paint over areas of the photo you don’t want to see.
- Click “Save Image” to save a copy of the edited photo to your device. This removes the metadata as well.
Signal
The open-source encrypted messaging app Signal will soon be able to automatically mosaic faces and manually blur objects using the mobile app’s built-in image editor. (This feature isn’t officially available yet, but here’s how to find it.)
- Open the Signal app and tap the camera icon.
- Take a photo or view an image saved on your phone to open the image editor.
- The blur tool will appear as a round icon with mosaic squares at the top of the editor menu, like in the screenshot above. Tap to automatically blur faces in your photo.
- You can also paint on the photo to blur any parts of the photo that you touch. Use this to blur faces the app might have missed and hide recognizable features like tattoos, jewelry or logos.
[ Android Police ]