Popular messaging app Signal has added blur tools to help protect the identities and privacy of people in photos.
Signal is widely to considered to be the most secure messaging platform on the planet. It uses end-to-end encryption and is open-source software. It is so secure that Edward Snowden uses it and the US Senate has urged senators and their aides to use it.
Now the company is taking the next step, adding blur tools to help protect the identity of people in photos.
“The latest version of Signal for Android and iOS introduces a new blur feature in the image editor that can help protect the privacy of the people in the photos you share,” writes Moxie Marlinspike, Signal’s creator and CEO. “Now it’s easy to give every face a hiding place, or draw a fuzzy trace over something you want to erase. Simply tap on the new blur tool icon to get started.”
The new feature relies on the underlying libraries in iOS and Android. As a result, all of the processing is done on-device, ensuring absolute privacy. In the event the underlying libraries don’t detect a face and blur it automatically, the new tool can also be used to manually blur an area with the blur brush.
This is an excellent upgrade to an already stellar application, and will surely see widespread use.