Novel Algorithms and Tools for Empowering People Who Are Blind to Safeguard Private Visual Content

People who are blind regularly use personal devices to take pictures and videos and share them with others. However, they often have no easy or independent means of assessing whether an image or video they are about to share inadvertently contains private information. For this project, an interdisciplinary team will design and evaluate an automated assistant that alerts users of privacy disclosures in their visual media and edits their pictures and videos to obfuscate any potential private content. If successful, these contributions will enable blind individuals for the first time to independently avoid accidental visual privacy leaks, thereby empowering them to live more independent and connected lives. This project can also be helpful to the broader population as they sometimes overlook private information in their visual content. 

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