Face & License Plate Blur

Faces. The detector is a small neural network (BlazeFace short-range, released by Google under the Apache 2.0 licence) that runs through WebAssembly in your browser. The model and its runtime (about 12 MB, loaded the first time you press Detect faces) are served from this site, not from a third-party host. Large photos are also scanned in overlapping tiles so smaller faces are found. Every detected face gets a box, enlarged a little to cover hair and chin, which you can remove.

Plates and everything else. No licence-plate detector is included, because no model small enough to run reliably in a browser was found. Drag on the photo to draw a box over each plate, a street sign, a document on a desk, a screen. Boxes can be removed one by one.

How areas are hidden. Pixelate (the default) replaces the area with large flat blocks scaled to the box size; solid black covers it; blur uses a three-pass box blur scaled to the box. The strength slider changes the block or blur size relative to the box. A light blur can sometimes be partly reversed with image processing, which is why stronger pixelation is the default.

The saved file. It is a new JPEG or PNG made from the pixels on screen, so the original content under a hidden area is gone from it, and camera and location data (EXIF) are not copied. Keep the original if you may need it.

What this is not. Hiding faces and plates does not by itself make a photo compliant with data-protection or image rights law, and it does not replace asking for consent where that is needed. The tool makes no GDPR claim.

JPEG, PNG and WebP up to 30 MB, 12,000 px on a side and 40 megapixels. Output is JPEG or PNG. Detection works on photographs of human faces; it does not find licence plates, text, or animals.

1. Drop in the photo (JPEG, PNG or WebP).
2. Press Detect faces and check every box. Remove wrong ones.
3. Drag on the photo to add boxes over plates, signs or anything else the detector cannot know about.
4. Choose pixelate, blur or black, and the strength. Press Apply and download.
5. Open the saved file and look at it again before you share it.

• Posting event or street photos without showing bystanders' faces
• Sharing a dashcam or traffic-incident frame without legible plates
• Hiding a face on a document, screen or name badge in a photo (draw a box)
• Removing location data from a photo while you hide parts of it
• Preparing images for a report, a forum post or a bug report

Detection can miss faces: small, partly covered, turned away, blurred, very dark or very bright, or in unusual poses; it can also box things that are not faces. Licence plates are never detected automatically. Always inspect the whole photo yourself and add boxes for anything that was missed.

Hiding something is permanent only in the saved copy. Context can still identify people (clothing, tattoos, a distinctive place), and a hidden area does not remove information elsewhere in the picture. The tool gives no assurance about data-protection compliance.