{"slug": "photo-scrubber-local-face-blur-metadata-removal", "title": "Photo Scrubber — local face blur & metadata removal", "summary": "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.", "body_md": "**Tool:** [Photo Scrubber — local face blur & metadata removal](https://tools.simonwillison.net/photo-scrubber)\n\nI 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](https://github.com/simonw/tools/commit/aa733ecc3458d5703e3b40c84507ae362f5fb294) this experimental tool that would identify faces and automatically blur them out.\n\nIt uses Google's [MediaPipe](https://developers.google.com/edge/mediapipe/solutions/guide) C++ library, compiled to WebAssembly via [@mediapipe/tasks-vision](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@mediapipe/tasks-vision), plus the [BlazeFace](https://sites.google.com/view/perception-cv4arvr/blazeface) face detection model.\n\nTags: [photography](https://simonwillison.net/tags/photography), [tools](https://simonwillison.net/tags/tools)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/photo-scrubber-local-face-blur-metadata-removal", "canonical_source": "https://simonwillison.net/2026/Sep/29/photo-scrubber/", "published_at": "2026-09-29 16:45:27+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-30 22:17:56.081504+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["computer-vision", "ai-tools", "generative-ai"], "entities": ["Simon Willison", "Photo Scrubber", "GPT-6 Astra", "Google", "MediaPipe", "BlazeFace", "@mediapipe/tasks-vision"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/photo-scrubber-local-face-blur-metadata-removal", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/photo-scrubber-local-face-blur-metadata-removal.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/photo-scrubber-local-face-blur-metadata-removal.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/photo-scrubber-local-face-blur-metadata-removal.jsonld"}}