Technology How to hide faces and scrub metadata when you photograph a protest

While showing up at a protest can demonstrate your opinion to the world, you may not want your face — or the faces of other protesters — to be included, especially when there is the possibility that authorities will collect and use that information (as they have for tracking movements during COVID-19 social distancing). As a result, many consider it vital to obscure the faces of people in any photos you may post on social media and other online sources. (For additional information, here’s a toolkit produced by the Authority Collective, offering information and advice on this subject.)

© Photo by Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images A protester takes a photo with her phone in Martin Place during a ‘Black Lives Matter’ rally on June 02, 2020 in Sydney, Australia. The event was organized to rally against aboriginal deaths in custody in Australia as well as in solidarity with protests across the United States following the killing of an unarmed black man George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

What follows are some strategies for removing facial features from your photos. Of course, you can open up your images on a desktop or laptop using Photoshop or Preview to blur or scrub, but we’re going to assume you aren’t carrying around a laptop with you. So with mobile in mind, you still have some solid options.

Protests continue after night of violence in California

Protests over the death of George Floyd resumed Saturday in California and authorities implored demonstrators to remain peaceful after a night of violence that saw windows smashed, stores robbed and fires set in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. In Oakland, 13 officers were injured as demonstrators hurled objects at them. A federal contract security officer was killed and another injured when a vehicle pulled up to the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building and someone opened fire. The officers were guarding the U.S. courthouse as part of their regular duties.

Protesters and activists have been sharing advice for how to treat injuries, avoid police detection, and stay safe during demonstrations over police Blur any faces before posting photos to any network. People use their phones to record the police during a protest . Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images.

Protesters and activists have been sharing advice for how to treat injuries, avoid police detection, and stay safe during demonstrations over police Blur any faces before posting photos to any network. People use their phones to record the police during a protest . Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images.

What needs to be done

When removing faces, you want to use a method that can’t be reversed. It is possible to de-blur a photo, especially using neural networks. It’s not possible to completely reverse the blurring, since it is lossy (in other words, some data will be permanently lost), but a lot can be “restored.” So why take the risk? Painting over faces, or using mosaic blur techniques, will prevent any possibility of reversing the effect.

You also want to remove any and all metadata from your images. They can carry GPS location, timestamps, and details about the type of phone used — basically, lots of things that can be used to pinpoint where you were and when.

Built-in methods

While there are a plethora of apps that will help blur or cover faces and remove metadata for both iOS and Android devices (some of which I mention below), there are ways you can do both without using a third-party app.

Peaceful protest against police brutality leads into night of unrest in downtown Detroit

Was it a political protest about "Black lives matter"? Or a bunch of angry anarchists bent on challenging cops? Both, but not at the same time.But after dark, those crowds were less peaceful. In Detroit, Friday night's protest had become tense and led to arrests, and it even involved a fatal shooting, although that was later determined to be unrelated to the protesting.

Protesters and activists have been sharing advice for how to treat injuries, avoid police detection, and stay safe during demonstrations over police Blur any faces before posting photos to any network. People use their phones to record the police during a protest . Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images.

Photos you take contain hidden data such as the date, time, and potentially even location in which they were snapped. It's possible for someone to It only takes a few seconds to rid a photo of valuable metadata and blur out a face . Given the intensity of police response to these protests after less than

First, you can use your built-in photo editor to individually block out faces. On iOS, open Photos, tap on your photo and select the Edit option (in the top right corner). Tap on the three dots in that same corner to access Markup. With that, create solid circles or squares to block out faces.

It’s not quite as easy using an Android phone. Android also has a native markup tool — in the Photos app, select the photo, tap on the Edit tool (second from the left on the bottom) and choose Markup (second from the right on the bottom). You can then use the center-bottom Pen tool to scribble over anything you want to cover.

Hiding faces using the iOS Photo app.

Hiding faces using the Android photo app.

You then want to get rid of the metadata. When you take a photo on your device, meta is going to be attached automatically. The easiest way to avoid this is to take screenshots of your photos so that meta and geotagging won’t carry over. Also make sure to view your photo fullscreen, and ensure you don’t have any notifications or other identifying features in the screenshot.

George Floyd protest live updates: Funeral to be held June 9 in Houston; Death ruled homicide; crowd tear-gassed near White House

George Floyd updates: Autopsy requested by family shows he suffocated; Funeral set for June 9; President Trump calls for crackdownIt was another day of protests accross the country. Moments after police in riot gear tried to disperse a crowd of peaceful protesters at Lafayette Square across from the White House, President Donald Trump said the civil disturbances that have erupted across the nation since George Floyd's killing on Memorial Day would be quelled.

Protesters and activists have been sharing advice for how to treat injuries, avoid police detection, and stay safe during demonstrations over police Blur any faces before posting photos to any network. People use their phones to record the police during a protest . Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images.

Protesters and activists have been sharing advice for how to treat injuries, avoid police detection, and stay safe during demonstrations over police Blur any faces before posting photos to any network. People use their phones to record the police during a protest . Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images.

The same can be done for video — at least, using an iPhone. Instead of just using the Camera app, start a screen record while you’re 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 — look for it in your Quick Settings shade by swiping down twice from the top. If it’s not there, or if you have a different phone model, you’ll have to download a third-party app such as AZ Screen Recorder.

Third-party apps that hide faces & remove meta

Recently, there have been a plethora of apps that will help hide faces and remove metadata for both iOS and Android devices. You may find it easier to use one of these.

For example, encrypted messaging app Signal has announced a new face-blurring tool that will be incorporated into the latest Android and iOS versions of the software.

There are also grassroots efforts like Image Scrubber, which you can use in a browser on your device to upload images to blur and scrub, and then to save the anonymous version back to your device. This is great because it works on all devices, mobile and desktop.

Americans disapprove of Trump response to George Floyd death and protests, polls find

Americans are unhappy with President Donald Trump's response to the death of George Floyd, his handling of the ensuing protests and the way he has dealt with race relations in general, according to four polls released this week. The death of Floyd, who was killed when a white Minneapolis police officer pinned him to the ground with a knee to his neck, has brought the USA's troubled history of race relations back to the forefront of the national consciousness.

Protesters and activists have been sharing advice for how to treat injuries, avoid police detection, and stay safe during demonstrations over police Blur any faces before posting photos to any network. People use their phones to record the police during a protest . Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images.

Every single photo you take carries with it a considerable amount of seemingly "invisible" yet important information known as metadata . Although metadata is usually helpful to sort your photographs by location and date, that same information could potentially be used against you

If you already use apps to edit and enhance photos, you might be able to use those to blur as well. Apps like Glitche (iOS) and Glitch Lab (Android) let you pixelate over selected areas, and Trigraphy (iOS) lets you create mosaic effects. If you want to take photos now and remove the meta later, you can use the apps mentioned above or photo apps like 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 fact. For me, I would take photos, edit them in the phone Photo app, take a screenshot — and then delete the originals. Because if your device is unlocked and you have the originals sitting there, then you may have done all that work for nothing.