[Ssc-dev] Making face blur / visual redaction a standard feature

[Nathan of Guardian]

Oh, and of course Andrew Senior who provided so much great fundamental
insights and functionality in those early, constrained days of Android.

On 6/4/20 10:50 AM, Nathan of Guardian wrote:
> Sent this blurry-eyed, no sleep written email out to the Berkman-Klein
> Center mailing list earlier this morning.
>
> Special thanks to Shawn, Harlo, Bryan, Hans, Martin, Sam, Dia, Arul and
> others who contributed to ObscuraCam over the years!
>
> It was also classy for Moxie/Signal to thank us for the inspiration:
> https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1268399755245187072
>
>
> ****
>
> In 2010, at the Open Video Conference hackathon, I came up with a
> concept called "auto blur the news"
> <https://blog.witness.org/2010/10/ovc2010-opensubtitles/>, while in a
> brainstorm with activists, advocates and coders, including Sam Gregory,
> a longtime ally from WITNESS. Using the built-in face recognition
> features on modern smartphones, you could instantly redact faces from a
> photo or video, instead of tagging or tracking those same faces. Out of
> this came an app called ObscuraCam
> <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.witness.sscphase1&feature=search_result>,
> which was always meant as a proof of concept demonstration to help lobby
> mainstream apps and operating systems a simple feature available for all.
>
> (Un)fortunately, ObscuraCam has been around for 10 years, become a
> "real" app, and growing in users and stability, though with minimal
> funding and resources. WITNESS did make progress  convincing YouTube to
> add a blur capability in some of its tools, and we had many meetings
> with Samsung, Google, Facebook and others, on the possibility of
> building this in to their camera software. We have also seen widespread
> use of ObscuraCam by people wanting to preserve privacy for their
> children, at school events, when selling cars online or to protect
> strangers caught in the background of a random photo. We also had the
> change to integrate some defensive AI image glitching as part of last
> year's Assembly program.
>
> Last night, the idea of adoption of these features beyond the confines
> of our little PoC occurred, with Signal announcing the general
> availability of automatic and manual photo redaction tools in their
> recent update: https://signal.org/blog/blur-tools/
> <https://signal.org/blog/blur-tools/>
>
> Our friends at WITNESS also tweeted:
>
> @SamGregory "10 years ago @guardianproject @witnessorg emphasized need
> for better easy tools to protect people's visual #anonymity, faces on
> mobile, vs + #facialrecognition. We built #obscuracam, pushed 4 #blur on
> #YouTube. Great seeing @signalapp  introduce on their secure messaging
> platform!"
>
> https://twitter.com/SamGregory/status/1268512277877178368
> <https://twitter.com/SamGregory/status/1268512277877178368>
>
> I am beyond thrilled that this has happened, especially right now,
> because it means users have an option, within the secure messenger they
> are already using, to capture photos directly to encrypted storage,
> redact and blur as needed, and then instantly share them in an encrypted
> manner to trusted contacts. With disappearing messages enabled, the
> presence of that image on their phone is ephemeral, reducing risk for
> self-incrimination if they are detained.
>
> NOW, I write all of this to you, because as fantastic as it is that
> Signal's tens of millions of users have this feature, we need this
> built-in as a normal capability in every device, every camera software
> and every messenger app. Just like with end-to-end encryption, Signal is
> leading the way in showing how this capability can be standardized and
> usable for all.
>
> We should probably create a petition or other public call to action.
> Right now, I think Signal should get the acclaim they deserve for
> furthering this idea, and pioneering just how secure a messenger app can
> be. If you have any ins, sway, influence or other connections to any
> other messenger service, social media or camera app, or mobile operating
> system vendor, please forward this, and let them know that we here ready
> to share the insights and wisdom we've gained over the last decade in
> how to implement this critical privacy feature correctly.
>
> Best to all of you out there, at home and on the streets.
>
> Nathan