YouTube adds face-blurring tool

On Wednesday, YouTube introduced a new tool that allows users to blur subjects’ faces in a video before uploading it to the site.

The new capability was announced by YouTube in a blog post by Amanda Conway, a YouTube policy associate.

“Whether you want to share sensitive protest footage without exposing the faces of the activists involved or share the winning point in your 8-year-old’s basketball game without broadcasting the children’s faces to the world, our face-blurring technology is a first step towards providing visual anonymity for video on YouTube,” writes Conway.

The face-blurring feature can be found within YouTube’s video enhancements tool under “additional features.” Users must select the “apply” button below “blur all faces.” A preview will be provided to verify that the user is ok with the changes. Once changes are saved to the video, a new copy is created with the blurred faces.

Conway warns that it’s not 100 percent reliable. In her blog post, she refers to it as “emerging technology,” and it’s possible that some faces might not be blurred.

Google uses similar face-blurring technology in its Google Maps Street Maps View, which also blurs images of vehicle license plates.