Face Dazzler

Counter facial recognition.

Get it for android on Google Play.

This application attempts to distort faces of photos so that they become unrecognizable by computer facial recognition.

It makes photos unable to be automatically tagged and matched to list of known faces - this way, no-one will be able to identify you by just having your picture.because dazzled images on web will not match it.

Inspired by old Dazzle warpaint and by CV Dazzle: Camouflage from Face Detection project, it uses highly contrasting sharp areas to throw off general purpose algorithms.

Usually, you might want to avoid having you likeness on internet, but this approach gives you another option - image family and friends will recognize , but machine won't

FAQ

Why does it exist?

Facial recognition is very useful feature, but also puts ones into position of being searchable over internet by strangers who happen to have your photo. Danger that you could prevent from happening by sharing no image of yourself. Which in the other hand, prevents people you want to recognize you from doing so. Or you could release image which computer vision can not even identify as a human, but your friends can easily see who is there.

Why use it?

Do you want to share pictures of friends, but do you not want their faces to be ever tagged automatically? You can anonymize their faces enough to do that while still allowing to photo to be meaningful. Or maybe you want to have profile photo. Go ahead.

How It Works?

App attempts to find faces on supplied image and then draw few distorting shapes to throw off facial recognition in general vicinity of found faces. It is not as simple under the hood, but this is the gist.

Inspiration

Dazzle warpaint for ships at start of 20th century. And also http://cvdazzle.com/ CV Dazzle project.

Test/promotional image by Michael Jastremski