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[ARTICLE · art-142843] src=simonwillison.net ↗ pub= topic=computer-vision verified=true sentiment=↑ positive

Photo Scrubber — local face blur & metadata removal

Simon Willison released Photo Scrubber, a browser-based tool that automatically detects and blurs faces in photographs and strips metadata, built with GPT-6 Astra. The tool runs locally using Google's MediaPipe C++ library compiled to WebAssembly via @mediapipe/tasks-vision and the BlazeFace face detection model. Willison said he built it after photographing protesters and deciding he did not want to share images of strangers with identifiable faces.

read1 min views1 publishedSep 29, 2026

Tool: Photo Scrubber — local face blur & metadata removal I took a photograph of some protesters, then thought about how I don't like sharing photographs of strangers with identifiable faces. I had GPT-6 Astra build this experimental tool that would identify faces and automatically blur them out.

It uses Google's MediaPipe C++ library, compiled to WebAssembly via @mediapipe/tasks-vision, plus the BlazeFace face detection model.

Tags: photography, tools

source & further reading
simonwillison.net — original article Quoting Anthropic Frontier Red Team Quoting @joedaroo Quoting Muse AI Agent
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