Youtube has launched 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, the face blurring technology is a first step towards providing visual anonymity for video on YouTube.
Blurring faces on YouTube is done easily and before publishing a video, 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.
Youtube says that 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. For all those who may be not satisfied with the accuracy of the blurring, they may wish to keep your video private.
"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 toprotect yourself and the people in your videos," said Amanda Conway, YouTube policy associate.