Blur faces in images with Survey123

[Kylie]

The privacy of minors needs to be protected. This includes their faces. When doing data collection with students, you might give instructions not to take pictures with other students in them. However, sometimes a student is in the background, or the instruction is forgotten (or ignored). You can set up your survey in ArcGIS Survey123 so that faces are blurred out when photos are taken.

Note: Blurring faces in Survey123 requires using ArcGIS Survey123 Connect to author the survey and the ArcGIS Survey123 field app to collect the data.

Step 1: Author the survey to include built-in face redaction

1. Create your survey in Survey123 Connect, including an image question.
   
   

   Tip: I often start in the web designer then download it in Connect and continue editing in Connect. If you are new to Survey123 Connect, see Guided tour or follow the tutorial Convert a paper census form to a digital survey.

2. Find the image question in the spreadsheet defining the survey.
   
   
3. For the image question, in the bind::esri:parameters column, add the redaction parameter as follows:
        redaction=@faces
   
   

   Tip: If that column has other parameters, separate the different parameter sets with a space. For example, to set a max image size as well as redacting faces, you’ll have:
          max-size=10 redaction=@faces

4. Optionally add additional properties to the redaction parameter. See Add smart redaction to a survey for supported parameters. Use an ampersand to separate the parameters. For example, to use a symbol to block the faces instead of blurring them, and to have the preview when taking the picture also show the symbol, use:
        redaction=@faces&cameraPreview=true&effect=symbol&symbol=🐷
   
   
5. Publish and share your survey.

Step 2: Set up the field app and collect data, blurring out faces in images

1. In the Survey123 field app, tap your profile picture in the upper-right corner.
2. Open the Settings page, select Privacy and Security, and enable enhanced camera features.
3. Download the survey and start filling out the survey.
4. Take an image and use the preview to review the redacted faces. You can do the following:
   • Click on the image to add a new redaction box
   • Click on a redaction box to move or resize it
   • Drag a redaction box to the trash to remove it

What else can smart assistants help you do?

You can now make sure the faces of minors aren’t exposed in your collected data. But there is more that smart assistants and Survey123 can do, including:

• Performing image classification or object detection on images, populating other questions in the survey based on the results.
• Annotate images after detecting objects in them.
• Add redaction boxes wherever your images need them.

Learn more in Smart assistants and Prepare smart assistants. For a tutorial, including how to build and verity a model, see Train a model to identify street signs.