bellingcat / bellingcat/toolkit

Suggest adding: VideoMasker - browser-based video face de-identification

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Dominant language
JavaScript
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Description

Hi Bellingcat toolkit maintainers,

Suggesting VideoMasker for consideration in the Image/Video or privacy-related toolkit area:

https://www.videomasker.com/

VideoMasker is a browser-based video de-identification editor for blurring or masking faces before publishing or sharing footage. It detects faces automatically, then lets the user review the timeline and fix missed, incorrect, or misplaced masks before export. Ordinary processing runs locally in the browser, which can be useful when open source researchers or journalists need to protect bystanders, sources, minors, or other identifiable people in video.

Why it may fit the toolkit: OSINT and journalism workflows often involve collecting, archiving, or publishing visual material from public events, conflict zones, protests, school/community settings, or social platforms. A lightweight tool for face de-identification could help researchers reduce privacy risk before sharing clips externally.

Honest limitations:

- It is focused on video face masking/de-identification, not broader forensic verification.
- Users still need to review the output because fully automatic face detection can miss faces in real footage.
- It does not handle audio/voice anonymization.

Disclosure: I am connected with VideoMasker. No pressure if this is outside the toolkit scope; I thought it was relevant to the practical privacy side of open source investigation workflows.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Review the toolkit's Image/Video and privacy-related sections, then inspect the VideoMasker site linked in the issue to understand the proposed resource. Done means determining whether it fits the toolkit's scope and, if accepted, adding an accurate entry in the appropriate section.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript
Domain
content, documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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