Do you remember the advertisement given by Idea to highlight
how a video sharing platform like YouTube can bring justice? Since the
evolution of YouTube and high speed broadband internet, video sharing has
become one of our favorite activities. These days, you can take a video from
smartphones, upload it within a few minutes and share with anyone. While this
facility may seem wonderful, some people always expressed their concern for privacy.
A famous human rights organization “Witness” recently
focused on this issue and said that “No
video-sharing site or hardware manufacturer currently offers users the option
to blur faces or protect identity". Some of the readers
may disagree with this suggestion, but when you consider the video footages
featuring kids and sexual assault victims, personally I think that face
blurring facility should be offered by all video sharing sites to protect
common man’s privacy.
Fortunately, Google noticed the statement made by Witness and recently
announced that users can now blur the faces of an uploaded video by using their
newly launched “face blurring” tool.
If you want to try the face blurring feature, log in to your YouTube
account, go to “video manager” section and click on the “edit” button beside
the video you want to smudge. Once the new page appears, select the
“enhancements” tab and hit the “additional features” button. To finish the
process, click “apply” button under “blur all faces” option. After that, delete
the original video.
While this feature will help people protect their privacy, democracy
lovers are expressing their concern and saying that this feature will help
criminals hide their identity. They can hack into anyone’s account and smudge
the faces to erase any proof against their crime. It’s a valid point and I
think Google should take a step to make sure nobody evades justice using their
technology. What do you think?
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