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Marvin Strauss, Jonas Keppel, Jan Günther, Verena Winterhalter, Donald Degraen, Viktorija Paneva, Uwe Gruenefeld, Jonas Auda, David Goedicke, Florian Alt, Stefan Schneegass
Face-Swapped Privacy: Understanding Preferences for Video Obfuscation of Oneself in Mobile Contexts
In MUM '26: Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia. November 8, 2026. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3861188.3861193 (bib)

The ubiquitous use of cameras and social media has increased images and videos, unintentionally capturing individuals. While state-of-the-art obfuscation methods like masking and blurring can obscure them, they often make footage visually unappealing. Literature suggests that face-swapping may balance effective and aesthetic obfuscation in images. However, research on perceptions of one's own face obfuscation in videos remains limited. To close this gap, we present an online (N=121) and a lab study (N=18) investigating perceptions of obfuscation methods—masking, blurring, and face-swapping—applied to one's own face in videos and others, and how recording in mobile contexts affects perceived suitability. Our findings reveal that face-swapping is perceived as less effective for videos compared to masking, as participants still recognized their own faces after the face-swap. The results also indicate that context influences participants' comfort with being recorded and suggest that comprehensive obfuscation may be necessary in certain contexts.