Pixelated photos and license plates can be unblurred using artificial intelligence

The researchers managed to defeat three privacy protection technologies. Firstly, they successfully identified faces from YouTube's blur tool, which allows users to automatically blur out objects and faces in their uploaded videos. It could also identify people and numbers from pixelated images created by Photoshop and the JPEG photo format's P3 - designed to be a secure way of hiding information. The algorithm is successful but not complete. It is only able to identify people or things it has previously been shown. However, an attacker, for instance, could use online social media photos to train the computer, which could make the method mainstream and dangerous.