Egonym anonymizes faces in BBC documentary

(CONNECT) Egonym contributed to the documentary "Troublemakers: Drugged, Framed and Detained" by BBC World Service Documentaries. The 50-minute film, which can also be seen on YouTube, investigates the detention of demonstrators in psychiatric institutions by the police, which is actually illegal in China. According to the BBC, the testimonies of three protesters show how they were held in a closed psychiatric ward for months, forcibly treated with psychotropic drugs and even subjected to electroshock therapy.

Founded in 2021, the Zurich-based company Egonym has made it its mission to protect privacy in a data-driven world. The faces are photorealistically and barely noticeably altered by its proprietary technology based on artificial intelligence. And yet the detection rate according to the so-called FaceForensics++ standard is reportedly 0 percent.

"Standard anonymization methods such as blurring erase emotions and demographic data," explains Egonym CEO Lukas Vordemann. As a result, the narrative loses its impact. "Egonym's natural facial anonymization preserves facial expressions and protects identity at the same time." For media companies, this means 90 percent lower processing costs and 50 hours of time saved in post-processing thanks to automation. The development of this innovation project was supported by a grant from Innosuisse. ce/mm