Face blurring: when footage requires anonymity

As citizens continue to play a critical role in supplying news and human rights footage from around the world, YouTube is committed to creating even better tools to help them. According to the international human rights organization WITNESS’ Cameras Everywhere report, “No video-sharing site or hardware manufacturer currently offers users the option to blur faces or protect identity.”

YouTube is excited to be among the first.

Today we're launching face blurring - a new tool that allows you to obscure faces within videos with the click of a button.

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.

Blurring faces on YouTube is simple. Once you’ve chosen the video that you’d like to edit within our Video Enhancements tool, go to Additional Features and click the “Apply” button below Blur All Faces. Before you publish, you will see a preview of what your video will look like with faces blurred. When you save the changes to your video, a new copy is created with the blurred faces. You will then be given the option to delete the original video.

This is emerging technology, which means it sometimes has difficulty detecting faces depending on the angle, lighting, obstructions and video quality. It’s possible that certain faces or frames will not be blurred. If you are not satisfied with the accuracy of the blurring as you see it in the preview, you may wish to keep your video private.

Visual anonymity in video allows people to share personal footage more widely and to speak out when they otherwise may not.

Because human rights footage, in particular, opens up new risks to the people posting videos and to those filmed, it’s important to keep in mind other ways to protect yourself and the people in your videos. 

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.

Amanda Conway, YouTube policy associate, recently watched "Russian court refuses to free anti-Putin punks."

A new channel to help businesses in Eastern Japan

Cross posted from the Official YouTube Japan Blog

We in the Tokyo office just opened “YouTube Business Support Channel” to assist businesses in areas of Eastern Japan affected by the recent earthquake and tsunami. We wanted to let everyone know that many businesses in Eastern Japan are rebuilding and operating once again.



We worked with seven local newspapers in Eastern and Northeastern Japan to produce short videos introducing small businesses such as hot springs inns and organic rice farmers. In each video, the proprietor appears on camera to talk about recent conditions and show off the premises or a few recommended items that can be purchased. Videos also feature on-screen annotations that link directly to Google Places pages, e-commerce sites, and travel services so that people in Japan can easily buy the shops’ goods or reserve rooms at the ryokan spa hotels. The channel currently has almost 90 of these videos, and our partners are planning to shoot more over the coming weeks.

Thanks to the support of companies Studio Alta and Avix, the videos will be broadcast around Tokyo on giant outdoor screens like the famous Shinjuku Alta Vision.

We hope the videos can contribute in some way to the economic recovery of the disaster-stricken areas.

Tai Hasegawa, Product Marketing Manager, Japan, recently watched “Wankosoba (soba noodles in broth eaten repeatedly in small servings) Shop is open for business in Iwate.”