Youtube launches Face Blurring tool helps to keep anonymity on Footage

Reveling something very sensitive on Youtube and wants to protect your anonymity. Youtube launched ‘face blurring’, a new tool that allows users to obscure faces within the videos with just the click of a button. This new tool will help citizen journalist around the world to share sensitive protest footage without exposing the faces of the activists involved, thus avoiding any personal or legal issues.

To use the face blurring tool on Youtube, users first need to select the video that need editing. On the right of the video you wish to edit, click Edit button. You’ll be taken to the edit info page for the video and then click Enhancements to start editing the video. Go to Additional Features setting at bottom and click the “Apply” button below Blur All Faces. Youtube will then automatically blur the faces of the people involved the video.

Before publishing, you can see a preview of how the video will look like with faces blurred. When you save the changes to the video, a new copy is created with the blurred faces. You will then be given the option to delete the original video.

This new toll is still an emerging technology, so sometimes it may have difficulty detecting faces depending on the angle, lighting, obstructions and video quality. It’s possible that certain faces or frames will not be blurred. But still its one of the first kind of tool.

“Visual anonymity in video allows people to share personal footage more widely and to speak out when they otherwise may not. YouTube is proud to be a destination where people worldwide come to share their stories, including activists. Along with efforts like the Human Rights Channel and Citizentube that curate these voices, we hope that the new technologies we’re rolling out will facilitate the sharing of even more stories on our platform.” said Amanda Conway, YouTube policy associate on official Youtube blog.