Protecting identity is very important, as far as internet is concerned. This is true for those who are uploading something personal on the internet, something that includes the face of person. On the other hand many people are comfortable in uploading their videos on YouTube. If you are among those who are concerned about your anonymity in the video, then Google has announced a new face-blurring tool for YouTube that works great and doesn’t requires the help of any other software/app.
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.
How to blur a face in a YouTube video
To blur a video on YouTube, select the video that you want to edit within the Video Enhancements tool. Now go to Additional Features and click “Apply” underneath “Blur All Faces”. Before you publish, you will also be able to see a preview which shows faces blurred. If you are satisfied by this preview, then save the changes to your video and a new copy is created with the blurred faces. You will then have option to delete the original video.
However, YouTube has pointed out that this tool may not work flawlessly and sometimes it has difficulty detecting faces depending on the angle, obstructions, lighting and video quality. Therefore sometimes it is possible that faces may not get blurred. If you are satisfied by the result of face blurring in the preview step, then go ahead or else its better 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.
No doubt this feature is very useful for those who are not comfortable to expose themselves or others that are captured in the video. Now such people can also share their videos by hiding the real identity of people that they wish to protect. Yes, those days when you can become an anonymous super star are here.
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