Blurring images

The purpose of the blurring tool is to allow users to step in if our automatic blurring algorithms fail. With the blur editor, you are able to blur parts of an image that have been missed or un-blur parts of an image that shouldn't have been blurred.

In this article you can read about general blurring guidelines, using the blur editor, and how the blur requests get approved.

What to blur and unblur

From every request you submit, our algorithm can learn and improve. Therefore, it's good if you're careful with the blurs and follow our tips on what to blur or unblur.

What should be blurred:

• Faces
• Vehicle license plates
• Inappropriate or private parts of the image (the alternative is to request deletion of the image)

What shouldn't be blurred:

• Whole people
• People from behind when the face is not seen
• Billboards, advertisements, brand labels
• Street, traffic and information signs

When viewing an image you can zoom in on it (using the mouse scroll), which means that details of the image may become sharper. Therefore, it may be necessary to blur more details than are visible when initially viewing the image. Ideally, we want to blur whatever is readable/recognizable when you zoom to the maximum in the image. This will be as sharp as it gets (so you won't later find another version of the image where you can see more clearly).

How to submit blur edits

To submit blur edits, select the triple-dot icon (...) when viewing an image on the Mapillary web, and then "Edit privacy blurs". You will enter the blur editor mode where you can add and review the blurs applied to the image.

All blurs related to this image are marked and numbered in the sidebar as well as in the image. There are three types of blurs waiting for review:

• Gray—blurs that have not been verified. These have been added by Mapillary’s automatic blurring algorithms.
• Green—blurs that you or other users have approved or added.
• Red—blurs that you or other users have suggested removing.

Hover over a blur to be able to approve or reject it. If you want to add a new blur, click on the “Add new blurs” button, then draw a rectangle on the image to mark where the new blur should be. You need to also click on the “Approve” button to submit the new blur.

You can’t edit a blur’s shape or location so if you want to correct something, just reject the current blur and add a new one.

Admin review

All red and green blurs will get reviewed by a Mapillary admin before actual blurring on the image is updated. The ones that appear faded have been submitted by other users and you can’t take any action on them.

For your own blur edits, you can change them as long as they haven’t gone through admin review yet. For example, if you added a blur, you’ll see it as green, but you can reject it just like any other blur.

Blurs that have been approved by an admin will appear in the “Confirmed” section in the sidebar. Blurs that admins reject will not be listed any longer. Due to cache, it may take up to 24 h for the actual blurring to be updated on an image. The Mapillary team reviews blur edits daily so altogether, please allow a few days for your blur edits to take effect.