Recognizing the fact that we live in politically and socially sensitive times, YouTube has launched a new tool on its video sharing site that allows a user to easily blur faces within videos with a simple click. You can now easily protect the identities of people, such as children and activists.

The YouTube blog reports, “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”.

The new face-blurring technology is a part of the Video Enhancements tool on YouTube. Choose the video that you want to edit in the Video Enhancements tool, go to Additional Features and click the Apply button below Blur All Faces. The Blur All Faces feature uses face detection technology to mask the face. It is still not perfect as footage quality and other variables might make it difficult to detect.

YouTube is probably the first online video site with this feature. The video sharing site is already a popular platform for real-time ‘breaking news’ by regular civilians. It is probably a sign of our times that socially responsible citizens need protection from reprisals as they either take to the streets in citizen movements, or consciously take the decision to protect their privacy. YouTube hopes that the new feature will further help society to voice its opinion without fear of their human rights being violated.

Source: YouTube blog