Hide faces and clear metadata when taking a protest photo

While attending a protest can show your mind to the world, you may not want your face or other protesters’ faces included, especially if the authorities are likely to collect and use that information (as they have). to monitor movements during COVID-19 social distancing). As a result, many people find it vital to hide people’s faces in any photo you may post on social media and other online resources. (For additional information, here Authority Collectiveoffers information and advice on this.)

The following are some strategies to remove facial features from your photos. Sure, you can open your images on a desktop or laptop computer using Photoshop or Preview to blur or brush them, but we’ll assume you don’t carry a laptop with you. So, considering mobile devices, you still have some solid options.

What needs to be done

You want to use an irreversible method when removing faces. In particular, it is possible to remove the blur of a photo using neural networks. It is not possible to completely reverse the blur, because it is lossy (in other words, some data will be permanently lost), but most of it can be “restored”. So why take the risk? Painting over faces or using mosaic blur techniques will eliminate the possibility of reversing the effect.

You also want to remove all metadata from your images. They can carry details about GPS location, timestamps, and the type of phone used – basically many things that can be used to determine where and when you are.

built-in methods

While there are plenty of apps for both iOS and Android devices to help blur or hide faces and remove metadata (some of which I mention below), there are ways to do both without using a third-party app.

First, you can use your built-in photo editor to block faces one by one. Open Photos on iOS, tap your photo and select Edit (top right corner). Tap the three dots in the same corner to access the markup. With this, create straight circles or squares to block faces.

Using an Android phone is not that easy. Android also has a native markup tool – select the photo in the Photos app, tap the Edit tool (second from the bottom left) and select Markup (second from the bottom right). You can then use the middle-bottom Pen tool to scribble over anything you want to turn off.

You then want to get rid of the metadata. When you take a photo on your device, the meta will be added automatically. The easiest way to avoid this is to take screenshots of your photos so that meta and geotagging doesn’t continue. Also, make sure you’re viewing your photo full-screen and that the screenshot doesn’t contain any notifications or other identifying features.

The same can be done for video – at least using an iPhone. Instead of just using the Camera app, start a screen recording while making your video and use that recording instead.

If you have an LG or Samsung Android phone, you may also have a built-in screen recorder – search it in your Quick Settings shade by swiping down twice from the top. If it’s not there or you have a different phone model, you’ll need to download a third-party app like the ones below. AZ Screen Recorder.

Third-party apps that hide faces and remove meta

Recently, there are numerous apps for both iOS and Android devices to help hide faces and remove metadata. You may find it easier to use one of these.

For example, the encrypted messaging app signal announced a new face blur tool that will be included in the latest Android and iOS versions of the software.

There are also grassroots efforts. Image Cleaner, You can use it in a browser on your device to load images for blurring and scrubbing and then save the anonymous version back to your device. This is great because it works on all devices, mobile and desktop.

If you already use apps to edit and enhance photos, you can also use them to blur. similar applications glitch (iOS) and Failure Laboratory (Android) allows you to pixelate over selected areas and trilogy (iOS) allows you to create mosaic effects. If you want to take a photo now and remove the meta later, you can use the apps I mentioned above or the photo apps like below. Halide (iOS) and snapseed (Android).

In the end, the method you choose will depend on how much work you want to do during or after the event. For me, I would take pictures, edit them in the phone’s Photo app, take a screenshot, and then delete the originals. Because if your device is unlocked and the originals are there, you may have done all this work for nothing.