Blurring text for privacy

Jul 07, 2017

I'm building courses for the staff at a college and it is sometimes necessary to display personal information on students in screenshots.  Is there a way to blur this information to keep it private?  I can do it in my photo editing software before importing the picture but was wondering if there is a way to do it after bringing the picture into Storyline 360.  

57 Replies
Marcel Tatang

We are living in a world where user's privacy is a hot daily topic, I think that this feature cannot be overlooked any longer. I really hope Articulate team will take this feature request seriously. You already see how many developers are requesting this feature and how it will assist our job greatly. I will especially benefit when the blurring can be applied on short animation like scrolling when recording simulation. Thanks!

Mind Garden
Madison Jurgens

Update: I found this tutorial that will work for me for the slides that don't include scrolling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_4XKcfjJKc&feature=emb_title

However, for the slides that do include scrolling, I still need a solution.

Tommy, I saw that solution, and it seems to help a lot of people! However, my company is very particular about the software we can use. Articulate and TechSmith are approved, so if there's a solution within them, I would definitely like to explore that. Otherwise, a new software request will take months (and quite a few irrate emails). 

I just want to be sure this is clearly noticed on the thread.  It is the fix for so many things.

Steven Benassi

Hi Corina!

We do not have an update on this feature, but it is one that we are continuing to track! This conversation is linked so that we can provide any updates here in the future. I've also included your voice in the feature request!

I wanted to share some information about how we manage feature requests, which may be helpful.

Thanks for reaching out!

Joseph Francis

"The bottom line is that when you need to redact text, use black bars covering the whole text. Never use anything else. No pixelization, no blurring, no fuzzing, no swirling...the last thing you need after making a great technical document is to accidentally leak sensitive information because of an insecure redaction technique." -- Dan Petro, Lead Researcher at offensive security firm Bishop Fox.

When redacting text, it should be edited as an image, rather than being obscured using simple HTML/CSS styling. For example, text masked using the same background color as that of the text body itself can be trivially revealed when highlighted.

Researcher "Reverses" Redaction, Extracts Words From Pixelated Image

 

"The reason why Google and Apple don’t offer a simple blur or pixelate tool might be rooted in the inherent insecurity that these methods bring with them. While it’s not entirely trivial, it’s easy enough to revert pixelated and blurred images to their former state, especially when you try to use these tools to make text unrecognizable. Rather than offer an option that’s proven to be insecure, the two companies might opt to not offer anything at all."

Don't Use Magic Eraser to Blur Your Face

Eric Santos

Thanks for reaching out, Ryann! The blur feature in Storyline is currently out of our feature roadmap, but I'll be sure to update this discussion if our team decides to reroute.

Here's our process for managing the feature requests we receive. If this makes it into a future update of Storyline, we'll let you know! 

Steven Benassi

Hi Alexx!

Thanks for checking in on this!

I don't have any updates to share at this time as our development team has been prioritizing other features. However, I've included you in the feature report and will provide updates if it makes it to our Feature Roadmap.

In the meantime, for your reference, here's a deeper look at how we manage feature requests.

Marcel Tatang

I believe there's nothing much more important than privacy these days, I wonder how Articulate team prioritizing their features. In my opinion (and I believe others as well) this blurring function is way more important than a better "text-to-speech". It would be great if you can implement AI to do the blurring or text modifying function.

Shannon van Toor

Hi Steven! 

I understand the development team has their priorities with developing features, but this is a feature which has been asked for a very long time. Even on articulate days because it would give us more time to create other awesome things instead of hiding privacy related matters. 

It would even be better if it also works with scrolling.

Is it possible to put this on the priority list as is has been asked for...6 years already?